


Twelve-Year-Olds Probably Shouldn't Be Investigating Murder Cases, But Apparently That's Where We Are Now.

by Silvex



Series: Easily My Most Self-Indulgent AU Yet [2]
Category: Persona 3, Persona 4, Persona 5
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Cute Kids, Everyone In SEES Is Alive, Gen, Persona 5 Protagonist is from Inaba, Teddie is a Child, because I said so
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-18
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:53:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 114
Words: 192,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25367146
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silvex/pseuds/Silvex
Summary: "Inaba is a small town out in the countryside. You're not going to need an Evoker." Aigis, as it turns out, was incorrect."There's not really a lot to do in this town. You'll probably be bored by the end of the year." Ren, unfortunately, was also incorrect.In which Ken moves away from Iwatodai to live with relatives, makes a new friend, and trips headfirst through a television set. Things do not improve from there.
Relationships: Amada Ken & Amamiya Ren, Amada Ken & Dojima Nanako, Amada Ken & Koromaru
Series: Easily My Most Self-Indulgent AU Yet [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1961047
Comments: 508
Kudos: 707
Collections: Quality Persona Fics





	1. In Which Aigis Tempts Fate

“Are you sure you have everything you need?”

Ken nodded. “We sent all my clothes and stuff ahead a week ago, remember? I’ve got the stuff I’m wearing, my train tickets, my phone…” There was a whine from the singular piece of luggage next to him. “And Koromaru! Though...”

“Inaba is a small town out in the countryside. You’re not going to need an Evoker. Also, I believe your uncle would object if we sent you to him with a spear.”

Probably. For some reason, people didn’t like it when twelve-year-olds carried weapons around. And he hadn’t had a real need to battle for a whole year, now. Still, it would have been nice to have the option to summon Kala-Nemi if anything went wrong.

“I guess so… I’ll send everyone a text once I get to Inaba, all right?” Really, they didn’t have that much reason to be worried… It was him who would be moving to a new place, after all. Not that he was completely sure about this himself, after so long had gone by without a word from any of his relatives, but he was sure it would be fine. Worst case, he had Koromaru to protect him.

Besides, his uncle couldn’t be that bad, if he was letting him bring a dog along with him. The only condition had been that he would be Ken’s responsibility, and that honestly wasn’t too different from how things had been already. Besides, Koromaru was smart enough to let Ken know if he needed anything.

Neither Aigis or Kotone objected to the idea, and Fuuka simply nodded along.

“Make sure the two of you take care of each other, all right?” She asked. “I’m sure that our senpai and Minato-kun would say the same thing, if they were here.”

Ken found himself grinning, just a little. “Not so much Junpei-san?”

“Arf!” Koromaru barked in agreement.

“Hey, that’s mean!” Kotone scolded. “Junpei’s grown up a lot since I first met him. But… you might have a point. I’d be sort of worried about him, if he didn’t have Chidori-san and Minato-kun. ...Of course, that just means I’m worried for an entirely different reason.” He didn’t think he was meant to hear that part.

Aigis, being herself, spoke up to defend Minato. Fuuka sighed.

“Ken-kun, you should probably just go now. This might last for a while, and we don’t want you to miss your train.” Why not? If he missed his train, he could stay with everyone, right?

Still, he knew he had someplace to be, so he nodded and picked up the pet carrier. “Right. I’ll talk to you later, then.”

Inaba awaited.

* * *

  
  


Dojima Ryotaro had not meant for three and a half years to pass between his sister’s death and taking in her child. It had just happened.

Among other things, it had taken several months for him to even get the news that she had died. He and Chisato hadn’t been prepared to look after another child at that point, Nanako still taking up most of their time, but he thought they could have been prepared sooner if they had just heard about it.

By the time they were, almost, sort-of prepared, Ken had vanished in a mess of red tape and paperwork for reasons having to do with someone who ended up dying under mysterious circumstances. Right when his whereabouts were a known thing again, Chisato had been hit by a car, and before Ryotaro knew it, another year had gone by.

To say that fate clearly had it out for his family was… a bit of an understatement. But he’d managed to get things back in order eventually.

When he arrived at the train station with Nanako, the kid was already there, holding an empty pet carrier and standing next to a gray-and-white dog with bright red eyes that barked when they approached.

Ryotaro still wasn’t sure how his nephew had come to own a dog, it was one of those things that had never come up before, but there it was, tail wagging like nobody’s business.

“Come on, Nanako,” He said, quietly. “Let’s go meet your cousin.”

* * *

  
  


No matter how much Ren enjoyed hunting for bugs at the shrine with other kids, the fact remained that the best bugs still wouldn’t come out until summer, even if that was a time he might not be so welcome anymore.

One of the younger kids said it best. “You’re going to be a middle school student,” He stated, around one of the many drink cans he brought with him everywhere. “You’ll be too big to play with us, then.” Like it was his fault that he was one of the few kids in Inaba to have been born during a certain year.

“Then what am I supposed to do?” He asked. The only interesting thing around Inaba was Junes, and there were only so many times you could visit a giant department store before the novelty wore off.

He just got a shrug in return, which was not helpful in the slightest. Annoyed, he left the shrine, wondering if his allowance would be enough to get a book or two. If he wasn’t going to have anyone to play with, he might as well search for something to do with his time.

If he didn’t have enough money… Well, there were always steak skewers.

As he walked down the street, he bumped into an older girl with short black hair. “O-oh! S-sorry about that.” He backed away from her. “You’re not hurt or anything, right?”

“Hurt?” Green eyes blinked down at him, as if this girl somehow didn’t understand the basic concept of getting injured. “No, I don’t think I am. You should watch where you’re going, though.”

“I-I will. Sorry again!” He scrambled away from her, head slightly ringing for no real reason, and continued down the street.

By the gas station, he saw a boy roughly his age tapping away at his phone. A young girl sat next to him, along with a dog that seemed wholly unconcerned about anything other than how it was currently being scratched behind the ears.

...Well, mostly unconcerned. Suddenly, the canine’s gaze turned to focus on Ren, and he froze even as the other boy’s gaze drifted away from the phone, moving to follow his pet’s. His eyes met Ren’s, and he stood up.

“Oh, hello. Do you live around here?”

He nodded, because what else was he supposed to do? He’d never had to try talking to a new kid before, he’d already met his entire year group and most of the years surrounding it. There just weren’t a lot of preteens currently in Inaba.

“That’s right. I’m Amamiya Ren. Are you new in town?” He hoped he would. It’d be embarrassing if he somehow managed to forget a sixteenth kid in one of the classes at his elementary school or something.

“I just moved here, actually. I’m Amada Ken, and this is Koromaru. Say hi, Koromaru.”

“Arf!”

The little girl next to Ken laughed. “Koro-chan’s really cute, isn’t he?”

Honestly, Ren was a bit more of a cat person, but he could sort of see it. “Yeah, I guess, um…”

“Oh, right. This is my cousin, Nanako-chan. I’m… going to be living with her, from now on.” He seemed sort of uncomfortable talking about it. Ren supposed it wouldn’t be a good idea to pry. Maybe at some point in the future, if they ended up becoming friends.

He hoped they ended up becoming friends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have no idea how far this is going to go, but I'm hoping it will at least reach the point where Yukiko realizes she's being led about by a gaggle of children, Teddie included.


	2. In Which Ren Forms A Contract

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Technically speaking, one probably shouldn't be making deals with random beings who have golden eyes. But then, nobody ever told Ren that.

Ren’s world was covered in fog.

He wasn’t sure how long it had been that way, but there he was, walking on a twisted path in a world so white, he couldn’t see past it.

“Hello?” He called. “Mom? Dad? Can anybody hear me?” His voice echoed through the fog, but there was no response.

“They’re not going to answer you.” The voice sounded a lot like his own, but he couldn’t see the speaker. “They’ve never answered before. Not when you really needed them, anyway.”

“I-Is someone there?” He kept peering through the fog, but he couldn’t see anything. “C-could you please help me?”

“That depends.” The mists shifted, just a little, and suddenly there was another boy there. One that looked just like him, but with golden eyes. “Are you just going to sit around doing nothing all night? Or are you going to try and fight against this?”

“Fight against what? The fog?” This didn’t make any sense.

The other Ren nodded. “Exactly. Come on, don’t you want to see what’s really out there? What they’re trying to keep hidden from us? Don’t you think it could be… exciting?” Well, he was sort of starved for excitement…

“How do we start?”

A deep blue light appeared in the corner of Ren’s vision. He turned to see a floating blue door made out of light. Being the only thing with color to it in a world of white, it was almost impossible to look away.

“I think we just found our answer,” The other replied. “If you’re not too scared to open the door, that is.”

Ren was willing to admit that he wasn’t the bravest person in the world. On the other hand, an accusation of cowardliness like that was something that he couldn’t take standing down.

He marched up to the blue door, and threw it open, stepping into a train car where everything was lined in the same deep blue. At the front of the car was a desk, and at that desk sat a small, hunched-over man with a long nose and bulging eyes.

The man looked at Ren and, in a raspy, high-pitched voice, spoke. “Welcome to the Velvet Room. I must say, you’re not the sort of guest I was expecting.”

“Guest?” Ren stepped forward into the train car, and the door clicked shut behind him. “Velvet Room?”

“This is a place that exists between dream and reality, mind and matter. It is a place only accessible to those who are adhering to some sort of contract. ...Ah, but where are my manners? My name is Igor, and it is a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

“...Amamiya Ren.” Another thing occurred to him. “But… what do you mean by ‘contract?’” He was sure he’d remember signing something like that.

“A contract is an oath, taken as written or as a verbal agreement. Though… most guests of this room don’t make contracts with themselves… strictly speaking.”

“With… myself? Do you mean the other me I saw earlier?” He supposed that, with the definition he’d been given, agreeing to somehow fight back against the fog technically qualified, but… “I’m not even sure what he really wanted me to do.”

Igor chuckled. “I’m sure that it will all come to you in time. Until then, take this.” A glittering key appeared in the air, and floated down into Ren’s hands. “This Velvet Key will allow you to access this room of your own accord in the future. Right now, however, our time is running short. Until we meet again…”

Ren blinked awake, only to notice that the key from his dream was now laying against his chest. He shrugged, stuck it in his coat pocket, and moved to get prepared for his first day of school.

* * *

  
  


On Ken’s first day of school, his uncle had already left by the time he was awake. “Dad has to leave for work early a lot,” Nanako explained, standing on a chair overlooking a frying pan. “How do you like your eggs?”

“However you can make them is fine.” It couldn’t be as bad as what Fuuka used to make, right? “Has Koromaru been fed, yet?”

“Not yet.” As if wanting to emphasize this, Koromaru gave a loud whine.

“Right. I’ll do that, then.” Even if it wasn’t as good as what Shinjiro made, there was enough dog food in the cabinets to last for the next couple of weeks or so. “Do you… normally do the cooking?”

“Dad can’t, so someone has to. But we do order out a lot.” Nanako scrabbled with a spatula for a few moments, before sighing. “...I guess it’s scrambled eggs, today.”

“Check the fridge to see if we have any cheese, then. That tends to go well together.” She hurried to do what she was told, pausing when she opened the door.

“...Why is there an alarm clock in here?”

“I don’t know. You’ve lived here longer.”

“...I’ll have to ask Dad later. And throw out the pickles… did this used to be salami?”

Ken was starting to get a bad feeling about this.

* * *

  
  


After class ended for the day, Ken wandered out into the halls of his school. Almost immediately, he spotted a familiar face outside of a nearby door.

“Oh, you’re the person I met yesterday. Amada-senpai, right?”

Ken nodded. “It’s nice to see you again, Amamiya-san.”

“You don’t… have to call me that. Just Ren’s fine.”

“Ren-san, then.” He wondered if this meant he had a friend his own age, now. It wasn’t like Aigis had ever really counted. If that were the case, he was sure everyone from SEES would be glad to hear it. They really worried too much about him, sometimes. “And only if you call me Ken.”

“I understand, Ken-senpai.” It still sounded weird. He was used to being the youngest person in his friend group, more or less. Having any sort of kohai just… didn’t compute. “So, what do you think? Do you like it here?”

“I’m not sure. I… haven’t really had a lot of time to get used to it. But I can say it’s not like anywhere I’ve been before.” If only because he’d lived his whole life in Iwatodai prior to this. “So I’m looking forward to seeing what it’s like.”

“There’s not really a lot to do in this town. You’ll probably be bored by the end of the year,” Ren warned him.

“I don’t know.” After everything that happened two years ago… “I think it’ll be nice to have some peace. You don’t really get that in the city.” Especially not in Iwatodai. Especially not with SEES.

Almost as if fate was waiting for him to utter those words, the PA system crackled to life. “Attention, please. There has been an incident in the shopping district. All students should go straight home at this time. I repeat…”

Ken sheepishly glanced back at Ren. “I spoke too soon, didn’t I?”

“I guess so. What do you think happened?”

He shrugged. “Whatever it is, I’m sure the police can handle it.” Unless it was Persona stuff, but Ken didn’t think that sort of thing would follow him all the way out to the middle of nowhere. “It’s definitely not something that kids like us should worry about.”

Well… maybe him, if it was something that involved Personas, but what were the chances of that?

“All right, then. It’ll probably be on the news, anyway. Maybe… if it’s interesting, we could talk about it tomorrow?” Why did he sound so nervous? Was he not used to talking to people his age, either?

“In that case, I’ll see you tomorrow, Ren-san.”

* * *

  
  


The incident was, in fact, on the news that night. “Police are still uncertain whether this was an accident or a homicide.”

There was a blurry picture on the screen of a dead body tangled on a television antenna. Ken wasn’t the sort of person to immediately dismiss the possibility that something might have been accidental- not anymore, at least- but he was pretty sure that was as obvious as murder could get, minus possibly just walking up to someone and stabbing them.

Nanako sighed. “Dad’s not going to be home tonight…” She curled in on herself a little.

“Are you scared?” Ken asked.

She shook her head. “It’s his job. So it has to be all right.” She sounded more like she was trying to convince herself, than anything else. Koromaru walked over and laid his head in her lap. “...Koro-chan?”

“Koromaru can sense when people are upset,” He explained. “And he likes to try and make them feel better.” All that, despite being one of the few Persona Users Ken knew that had no healing capabilities. “He’s pretty protective, too, so we’ll be safe as long as he’s around.”

Ken could feel Kala-Nemi stirring, shining a spotlight on the thought that he didn’t need a dog to defend him, when he could do that just fine. Ken simply reminded himself that he didn’t have an Evoker on him at the moment, and his Persona settled back down again.

If only all of those problems could be solved with a simple reality check…

Nanako smiled, and reached down to pet Koromaru. “Really?”

“He’s always done his best to help me before. Even when… I wasn’t handling things as well as I should have been.” He got a quizzical look for that, but he kept himself from saying anything more, and she didn’t ask anything outright, eventually being distracted by the Junes jingle.

That was close. He had to be more careful not to say too much. Sure, he didn’t see any reason why the topic of Personas would ever come up, but why take the risk? Nanako was even younger than he’d been when he started experiencing the Dark Hour. She didn’t deserve to be pulled into that kind of stuff.

Sure, neither had he, but at least now there wasn’t a special time to pull people into it whether they liked it or not. At least the world had that going for it now.

Hopefully, this murder business would be all wrapped up by the end of the week.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter partially dedicated to the fact that Dojima apparently never cleans the fridge. At least Nanako's science projects have lots of fertilizer.
> 
> I'm not sure why my brain decided a train car was a good halfway point between a limo and a jail cell, but that's what Ren's Velvet Room is now. We'll see how it goes.
> 
> I'm honestly not sure anyone's ever explicitly told Ken not to tempt fate, or if they just assumed he'd have seen enough of Junpei to use as an example of what not to do.


	3. In Which Ken's Week Doesn't Get Any Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone in town is talking about one of two things- murder, or the Midnight Channel.
> 
> It turns out that Ken doesn't find either of them any fun.

At school, the talk of the day was murder. Ken supposed he should have expected it, with how it would have interrupted everyone’s plans yesterday, but that didn’t mean he was comfortable with it.

“Ken-senpai? Is something wrong?” Ren asked.

“It’s just… Someone died yesterday, and everyone’s talking about it like it’s no big deal.” Like whoever it was hadn’t even mattered.

“It’s also the most exciting thing that’s happened since Junes opened up.”

“Ren-san, this is serious.” For a moment, Ken had to remind himself that he was probably the only person at the middle school with an understanding of his own mortality, and his had been rather forcibly induced. These people probably just didn’t know any better. “They don’t really care about it, they’re not worried…” It just left a bad taste in his mouth.

“...Do you want to go somewhere else?” Ren suggested. “If you have any money, there’s a place in the shopping district that has really good steak skewers.”

“Yeah, I should have some. Before I left Iwatodai, one of my friends gave me…” Ken suddenly realized just how much money Mitsuru had sent him off with. “...More money than I should probably be carrying around, really. But isn’t the shopping district…?”

“Everything’s been cleaned up by now, and like you said, the police can handle it. We’ll just have to be really, really careful.” For someone who’d never possessed incredible powers over light, electricity, and the fabric of space, he sounded surprisingly confident.

And, well… he supposed there wasn’t any point in hiding away forever. Besides, Evoker or not, he was pretty sure genuine fear for his life would be enough to bring out Kala-Nemi, so he wouldn’t be entirely helpless.

It was Ren he was more worried about. And while Ken could easily use himself as a reason that eleven-year-olds shouldn’t be allowed to make their own decisions, it would have been hypocritical of him to deny his friend that chance. “Well, if you’re sure it’s safe…”

* * *

  
  


Forty-five minutes later, the two of them were sitting at a small table by a food stall, eating steak skewers. They made Ken feel a bit better, in the way that all good food did for Persona Users, but this meal did more for him physically than mentally.

Fortunately, it was a weak effect, and all he’d had to remove in the first place was a light bruise from when he’d accidentally dropped Koromaru’s pet carrier on his foot, but honestly, if he was in a position where he’d be eating food to restore much more than that, he’d probably have bigger problems.

“This is… really good,” He said, in between bites of meat. He thought maybe he’d recommend it to Akihiko, if he ever stopped by Inaba. It seemed like something he’d enjoy.

Ren smiled. “Yeah, people say it’s… the most famous food in town, aside from maybe the beef bowl challenge.”

“...Beef bowl challenge?” Okay, never mind that, he had an even better recommendation, now. He’d only just heard about it, but it sounded like a thing Minato would enjoy, as well.

“On rainy days, at Aiya’s, you can ask for a really big bowl of beef and rice, and if you eat it all in the time limit, you don’t have to pay. But they don’t give it to people under sixteen, so… we won’t be able to try it out for a while.” He glanced back down at the table. “It’s… like I said. There really isn’t much for us here.”

Ken was about to say something, when Kala-Nemi stirred. He glanced around, wondering what his Persona could possibly be reacting to, but the only new thing he saw was a boy with bleached hair in a high school uniform.

“Hey, Ren-san?” He ventured, watching as the boy ordered a pair of steak croquettes. “Do you know who that person is?”

Ren nodded. “I’ve… met him a few times. My parents say I shouldn’t talk to him, though. Something about him joining a biker gang?”

The teenager took notice of their conversation. “Amamiya, I beat the-” He glanced at Ken worriedly. “-The crud out of that biker gang, and we both know it.”

“I already know how to swear,” Ken deadpanned. It was sort of inevitable, having lived with Shinjiro.

“Doesn’t mean I should be doing it around kids.”

“I’m twelve!”

“Still a kid.” He didn’t really have a good response to that. Not without pulling out things that really would be better left hidden. “And Amamiya’s eleven, so…”

“Ah, Kanji-san, this is Amada Ken. He just moved here the other day. And, Ken-senpai, this is Tatsumi Kanji. He lives…” Ren glanced around the street for a moment, before pointing. “...Just over there.” This sounded a lot more confident than his words earlier. Maybe he’d finally started opening up. It’d be nice, if at least one of them knew what they were doing in a given conversation.

“I see. It’s nice to meet you, Tatsumi-san.” He meant it. Something about him reminded him of Shinjiro. Or maybe it was Akihiko? ....One of them. Possibly both.

Either way, he was sort of familiar, was the important thing.

“...It’s nice to meet you, too, I guess, but… could you not call me that? It always just makes me think someone’s asking for Ma.” All right, that was fair. Ken still felt a bit weirded out whenever he heard someone call him senpai.

“I can do that.” Or not do it, as the case may be. “Ren-san, I thought you weren’t supposed to talk to him?”

“What Mom and Dad don’t know won’t hurt them.” Ren’s eyes widened, as if he hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Besides, Kanji-san’s… nice. There’s not a lot around here, but he still has time for us.”

Kanji shifted uncomfortably. “Well, I mean, I ain’t got much to do, either. All anyone at school talks about are the murder and the Midnight Channel.”

“...Midnight Channel?” These words sounded oddly familiar, for some reason.

“Some urban legend. Turned off TV, midnight, rainy night… something like that. Probably doesn’t matter. Even if it’s all some people will talk about…” Though Kanji dismissed it as just a rumor, Ken couldn’t help but be curious. It had been a while since he’d stayed up until midnight, but if it was going to be raining that night… the worst that could happen was that nothing would happen, and he’d be extra tired the next day.

Maybe he’d take a look. Just for the sake of it.

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, Ken had forgotten just how boring waiting for midnight could be. He stayed downstairs and watched the news until it was time for bed, and then just sat on the couch as the minutes passed by, and raindrops fell against the window.

Still… he couldn’t go back to sleep just yet. It was like something was holding him in place, until he saw whatever the Midnight Channel had to show him.

Eventually, finally, the clock struck twelve, and the TV screen turned on all by itself. There was a figure there, older and with long, wavy hair. It wasn’t anyone he’d ever met before, he thought, though he was mostly sure because he’d barely talked to anyone fitting that description. Certainly not since coming to Inaba. The picture was too covered in static to make out anything else.

After a few seconds, the image cut off again, and Ken was once again sitting in a dark room with only a sleeping Koromaru for company.

“...What was that about?” Maybe he’d be better off just putting it out of his mind for the time being…

* * *

  
  


Ren wasn’t sure how it had happened, but at some point, he’d apparently taken on the job of guiding Ken around town after school. He hadn’t been entirely sure about taking him to Junes, but apparently he wanted to know what was so great about the store, that his cousin was singing about it all the time.

“There’s a lot of really big TVs here,” Ken noted, as they stepped into the electronics section. “I’m not sure anyone I know has one that size… not as a flatscreen, anyway.”

“I… don’t know if anyone could buy them,” Ren admitted. “At least, not in Inaba. I think people mostly come to this section for CDs.” He wasn’t entirely sure. This section was as new to him as it was to Ken.

“Huh. Do you think they’ll have-?” At that moment, several things happened in quick succession. Ken moved to face Ren, but stumbled over his shoelace- backwards, right into the path of the nearest television.

Ren moved to help him, already anticipating the trouble they’d be in if they broke anything, but Ken fell against the screen, tumbled through it, and was gone.

For a moment, he couldn’t do anything but stare at the ripples left behind where his friend had been. Then, not knowing what possessed him, he reached forward, letting his fingers brush the screen.

The screen rippled.

Without thinking about it, Ren climbed into the television frame and let himself fall through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just saying, there's not a lot of ways someone can discover the ability to enter the TV. Tripping on shoelaces arguably makes more sense than how Souji did it.


	4. In Which Two Children Wander Lost Through A Television

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken's day didn't start out all that great, and it's not getting much better, either. At least Ren seems to be handling it well enough.

Out of all the things that had ever happened to him, Ken was pretty sure this was the weirdest one yet. If only because the Dark Hour had at least been predictable. No one would ever expect to be falling through a sea of white after stumbling into a television.

Somehow, he wasn’t hurt when he hit the ground. He was sure he should have been, given how high he’d fallen from, but he wasn’t going to question it.

As he pushed himself up, another body hit the ground behind him. “...Ren-san?”

Ren groaned, rolling over onto his back. “Ken-senpai. Where are we?”

“Apparently, on the other side of a television.” Somehow. “At least… I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

Well. Maybe a bit like this. Kala-Nemi was shimmering just under his skin, as though awaiting his command, never mind that there weren’t any Evokers that were less than two hours away from Inaba by train.

“That… right.” Ren finally picked himself up off the ground, glancing around him. “This fog…”

“Huh?”

“...Never mind. It’s stupid. We should- should focus on how we’re going to get out of here.” Right. They’d fallen from the sky… and when Ken looked up, he didn’t see any convenient televisions to climb out of.

...Admittedly, he couldn’t see much of anything at all, but it would have been nice to have that, at least. This didn’t feel like the sort of thing he could wait out just by sitting around for an hour.

“Well, I… don’t think we can go back the way we came in. But maybe there’s something around here that can help us.” He checked his phone. “...No service. Of course there isn’t.” He didn’t know why he’d dared to hope otherwise. Really, he was lucky it hadn’t gotten broken in the fall.

As he was letting himself be relieved that he wouldn’t have to explain to the rest of SEES that he’d fallen through a television set and broken his phone, Ren stepped forward. “Ken-senpai, do you… see a door over there?” He gestured in the direction of more endless white.

He shook his head. “What door?”

“It’s blue, looks sort of like it’s made of light?” That… Minato and Kotone had both mentioned something like that in the past, hadn’t they? When they’d stand in the corner of the Tartarus lobby and stare at nothing?

“I… don’t see anything like that,” He stated, slowly. What could this possibly mean? “You can try going through it if you want, but… I won’t be able to follow you.”

Once more, Ren glanced at where the invisible door supposedly was, before shaking his head. “...Maybe later. We need to figure out where we are, first. Maybe this way?”

Ken was pretty sure the chosen direction was random, but it seemed like as good an idea as any. “All right. Let’s go, then.”

* * *

  
  


Ren was genuinely worried that, if he looked away from Ken for more than a few moments, he was going to disappear. The fog was just that thick, and Ken seemed just that much more confident than he was. Like he was born to walk through this fog.

It was unnerving. Ren couldn’t take more than a few steps at a time without checking to see he wasn’t about to walk off a cliff or something, and while the other boy didn’t have much surer footing, there was something about him that said he wasn’t scared.

Or, at least, not as scared as him. Never mind that he was the one who’d agreed to somehow fight the fog, not realizing that it meant actually declaring war on the weather. “We’re… pretty high up, aren’t we?” He asked. There was a railing nearby, and he didn’t think there was any ground underneath it, not that he could fully tell with the world as white as it was.

“I… guess. I mean, I’ve been up a lot higher than this.” He had no idea how Ken could sound so confident of that fact when they had no idea how far off the ground they were to begin with.

Another shape appeared in the fog, though it took a while longer to get close enough to see what it was. “Is this… someone’s apartment?”

“...I mean, I don’t think anyone actually lives here…” But Ken stepped through the door either way, and because he did, Ren followed.

The air was a bit clearer here, to the point where Ren could actually see the interior of the room. Looking at how it was decorated, though… he sort of wished he couldn’t.

“This… isn’t a good sign, is it?” He asked, staring at the noose that dangled above. He was never going to be able to look at that sort of scarf the same way again.

Ken grimaced. “Definitely not. Actually, maybe we should… go back the way we came, or something. I have a bad feeling about this place…” Who wouldn’t?

“That- that’d be nice, but… we still wouldn't have a way back.” Not that he thought this room would be much help. “And… Can we even find the way back to where we came? There’s so much fog here…”

“It’d be better than staying here.” Ken refused to look at the center of the room. “We can… maybe we can find someplace else like this, but less… horrible.”

That did sound nice, even if the effort of peering through the fog outside was leaving Ren with a splitting headache. As long as they found someplace safe to rest, it would be fine, right?

“Okay. I think we can do that.” He wasn’t sure if those words would end up being true or not. “Or.. maybe I could look through that door I saw earlier.” Even if it just led him to the same place as his dream… At least it would tell him that his dream had actually meant something.

At the very least, if he was in the train car, he wouldn’t be straining his eyes through the endless wall of fog.

The only question would be getting there to begin with.

* * *

  
  


They didn’t even make it that far before running into trouble. Ren wasn’t entirely sure how it had happened, but one moment he and Ken were returning to their ‘original’ elevation, and the next, a small group of round shapes with what appeared to be tongues were emerging from the mists.

“Wh-what are those!?” He stepped back, shaking, wondering how he had so far managed to keep his balance.

“I’m not sure. I’ve never seen them before.” Right. Of course Ken wouldn’t know anything more about this place than he did. “...Do you happen to see any long, pointy objects?”

The closest thing Ren had seen to a weapon today had been the chair back in the noose room, and even if they could run back there, he didn’t think that Ken would agree to it. “Would it surprise you if I said no?”

“...Not really. ...Ren-san, move!” Without questioning it, Ren darted to the side, just in time for a large chunk of ice to embed itself into place where he was standing just a second earlier.

Was this how he was going to die? Killed by floating, disembodied mouths?

Just as he was thinking that, a voice identical to his own spoke up inside his head.  _ ‘I am thou. Thou art I. Now is the time to fulfill your promise to fight!’ _

And with those words, something clicked into place that he hadn’t even realized was missing.

“Persona!” The world was white, but it was also blue light, and Ren and Arsene stood against the monsters that had emerged from the fog. They reached out a hand, and darkness leapt forth from the ground, lashing at one of the mouths and knocking it back.

This wasn’t perfect- he could sense that, if he was so much as clipped by a snowball, things would very quickly turn not in his favor- but he could work with this.

He could definitely work with this.

* * *

  
  


To say that Ken hadn’t been having the best day was a bit of an understatement. People had yet to stop talking about murder, he was tired due to his taking a slight interest in the Midnight Channel, he’d tripped and fell into a television…

Now, he and Ren were surrounded by a quintet of unfamiliar Shadows that seemed interested in throwing ice at them until they turned into topsicles. At least, if they survived this whole experience, he could probably say he’d already reached the low point of his day.

If they survived. Even with Ren’s apparent Persona, he still wasn’t all too sure of it. That was a lot of Shadows…

“Arsene!” Ren lashed out with the darkness again, running away to avoid being hit by a pair of Bufu spells. At least… Ken hoped that was just Bufu.

The remaining trio of Shadows were still focused on him. Right. Persona User who couldn’t summon his Persona, probably considered an easy target. Never mind that, while he wasn’t as good as Akihiko, there was very little to stop him from walking up and punching these new Shadows in the mask, assuming physical attacks would affect them.

Even if it wouldn’t be as impressive as Ren’s newfound magic. Or as useful as if he could just tap into his own powers. Kala-Nemi’s shimmering grew even brighter, as if preparing to take the spotlight the first chance he got.

...Why not try giving him that chance? Worst case scenario, nothing happened and he looked a bit foolish to three beings without eyes and a person who probably couldn’t even see him through the fog.

“...It’s worth a try,” He decided, stepping away from another spear of ice. If it weren’t for the fog, they wouldn’t be scary at all. Their power was nothing compared to Mitsuru.

He wasn’t quite sure how much the shape his hand made resembled an actual gun, but it felt the same, and with his other self so close to the surface, maybe that was all he needed. “Kala-Nemi!”

There was another flash of blue light, and the crackle of electricity, as Ken’s first Zio in a very long time obliterated one of the Shadows, the other two swiftly deciding that, in fact, Ren looked a lot more appealing of a target. Like he was going to let his friends be attacked by four- wait, three, he’d defeated one of them- Shadows at once.

Besides, these were weak Shadows. He didn’t need anything more than the simplest of spells to deal with them.

* * *

  
  


Ren hadn’t expected Ken to intervene in the fight with a Persona of his own. Even without really knowing what was going on, he could tell that his friend was strong, and seemed much less hindered by the fog.

When the last of the mouths had been obliterated, save for a single, twitching tongue, they both let their Personas fade away. “Are you all right, Ren-san?” Ken asked.

“I-I should be,” He replied, stubbornly trying to ignore the furious headache that had made itself known as soon as Arsene vanished. “I-” He paused, listening. “Do you hear anything?”

Ken nodded. “It sounds like… squeaking?” He sounded just as confused as Ren felt.

“Hello! What are you doing here?” Ren considered it to be a testament to his self-control that he did not jump.

“We sort of… fell through a TV earlier and got lost,” He admitted. “Or… Ken-senpai fell, and I decided to come after him… it maybe wasn’t the best idea.”

“I’ll say!” The speaker stepped out of the fog, revealing an adorable blue and red plush bear with big, round eyes and twitchy ears. “It’s beary unsafe for you to be here! The fog’s going to lift soon, and that’s when the Shadows get violent.”

“It’s a bit too late for that, actually…” Ken mumbled. “And we’d leave if we knew how…” His gaze refused to leave the bear. “What are you?”

“Me? I’m a bear. Can’t you tell?” His ears twitched again. “If you want out, I can help you leave!”

“...I’m not even going to question it.” Ren was pretty sure that Ken hadn’t meant to say that out loud. “Please help us…”

“All right, then. A one, and a two, and a three!” The bear jumped in place for a few seconds, each landing creating another soft squeak, and then a small stack of televisions appeared between the two boys. “Go on then, shoo! Shoo!”

A few seconds later, Ren was collapsing to the floor of Junes. “Did that bear just shoo us away like we were flies?”

“It looks like it…” Ken sighed, looking up. “It’s really late… I should be going home soon.” Going home actually did sound really nice right now… Ren felt like he could sleep for a week, after that fight. “You should hurry back, too. Awakening to your Persona can be really tiring. And after that fog… Rest would definitely be a good idea.”

He wasn’t quite sure why Ken was treating himself like he was an expert in the subject, but… rest did sound really good right now. Actually, that was probably the best idea he’d heard all day.

“All right, then. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Maybe then they could try making sense of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken totally realizes that Teddie's a Shadow, he's just reached the point where he'll take any help he can get.


	5. In Which Ken Keeps Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Well, okay, he's always keeping secrets. They just happen to be a bit more relevant this time.

_ Shiomi Kotone: So, Ken-kun, how have you been? Are you settling in okay? _

How was he supposed to respond to this? ‘I sort of tripped through a TV and ended up fighting a lot of Shadows?’ ‘If you send Akihiko-san down here, I’m not sure you’ll ever get him back?’ ‘I met a friendly Shadow?’

Maybe he just wouldn’t talk about that part of things for now.

_ Amada Ken: I made a new friend. His name’s Ren, and he’s in the grade below me. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: Huh… Ken and Ren. _

_ Amada Ken: You’re not as funny as you think you are. Anyway… _

How was he supposed to put this?

_ Amada Ken: Do you think you could send me one of my spears? It doesn’t have to be Gungnir or anything… Just sharp enough to stab things with. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: Why would you need to stab things? _

_ Amada Ken: ...Self-defense? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: Why did you end that with a question mark? Why was there an ellipsis? _

_ Amada Ken: ...You know what? I’m going to be late for dinner. Talk to you later! _

Ken flipped his phone shut, turned it off, and stuffed it back into his pocket. He’d probably have to tell the others about his adventure in the world inside the TV eventually, but right then, he didn’t really have any ideas for how to talk about it that wouldn’t bring a swarm of outside Persona Users down on Inaba.

And even if he did know what to say, he’d want it to wait until he was as safe from getting rained on as possible. The upcoming storm hadn’t really started yet, but once it did, he didn’t want to be outside. It was Akihiko who would be completely safe if he were struck by lightning, not him.

He sighed. “When they find out about this, I’m going to be in so much trouble…”

* * *

  
  


For once, the entire family was sitting around the dinner table. Ken didn’t think it had been that way since he first moved in. Even on the first night, his uncle had been called away for work. It was a new experience, even if it should have already happened before.

It was also painfully clear that his uncle had no real idea how to relate to him. “So… sports are probably going to start up soon at your school. Do you think you’re going to join in?”

“I’m not sure,” He admitted. Before today, he’d been sort of considering soccer, but… “I’m pretty sure the school doesn’t have a club for the sort of things I’m interested in, though.”

“Oh?” Nanako glanced away from the television. “What sort of things do you like?”

It was really hard to think of a good answer to that kind of thing. He couldn’t talk about the television thing without going into Personas, and spears were the sort of thing that got him asked questions no matter the context. People just didn’t expect kids his age to be interested in weapons, or able to use them responsibly.

“Um… just fitness in general?” Climbing huge numbers of staircases, running down dark hallways, occasionally picking fights with things that had no business existing where he could run across them… that sort of thing. “And a lot of my senpai in Iwatodai were into different kinds of weapon sports. Kendo, fencing, archery…” And then there was Junpei, who had never quite gotten past the point of treating his sword like a baseball bat, though at least he was consistently hitting Shadows with the sharp side. “There were a lot of things.”

“Your senpai?”

“The people I lived with, for a while. They were always taking care of me, so it seemed like a good idea to learn about the sort of things they like.” A lot of it still flew over his head, but he and Kotone had bonded, at one point, over their similar weapon types, so it had clearly been an effort well spent. “I’ve learned a lot from them.”

Was this too much? He had to be careful not to be too honest, in case anyone thought to ask why he’d been in the care of a group of highly dysfunctional teenagers, but he couldn’t just avoid the subject forever, could he? Maybe changing the subject would be a good idea. “...What about you? Why not tell me a bit about yourself?”

His uncle gave an odd glance his way as Nanako spoke. “Well, I like Featherman, and Magical Detective Loveline. Oh, and my birthday’s the fourth of October.”

...Well. At least he’d never have to worry about forgetting it. “...Mine’s June twenty-fourth.”

If either of them noticed his discomfort, they didn’t say a word about it. Koromaru would probably have huddled a bit closer to him if he could, but he’d stuck close ever since Ken got back from Junes. Probably because he smelled like Shadows or something. He’d offer reassurance, but there were normal people around.

He’d tell him about his day later. At least, so far away from Aigis, he didn’t have to worry about his dog snitching to the rest of SEES.

* * *

  
  


In all honesty, Ren should have probably been asleep. Ignoring the fact that he still felt sluggish from his adventures in the TV earlier, and still had a fog-induced headache, it was nearly midnight.

There were a number of reasons why Ren was not currently in bed. The first, and most obvious one, being that the storm had woken him up.

The second reason was that, now that he was very slightly less wiped out, he was suddenly incredibly aware of Arsene’s presence within him. It wasn’t a bad feeling- far from it- but every time he started drifting off again, the new awareness prickled at him, surprising him back into wakefulness.

The third reason was that, after learning about the Midnight Channel, and realizing just how close it was to midnight… he had to admit, he was sort of curious. It’d be nice, if there was something to do in this town besides study and, apparently, fight monsters inside a television.

So he slipped downstairs, not particularly worried about waking up his parents, sat down in front of the TV, and waited.

The clock struck twelve, and the screen turned on.

He recognized the girl that appeared. Konishi Saki, a girl that was constantly spoken of in hushed whispers around town, because she was a girl from the shopping district that worked at Junes.

Or, a least, it was something that looked like her.

Konishi Saki didn’t have golden eyes.

“Hello, everyone. I’m your host, Konishi Saki. Tonight, I will be tearing down the whole of Inaba… starting with this miserable worm.” The camera panned to show an identical, terrified girl.

The show only got worse from there, until it cut off five minutes later.

Ren couldn’t look away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My basic rule for how much I can traumatize Ren is that the world can only shit on him as much as it does Ken.
> 
> Sadly, given Persona 3, that really isn't saying much.


	6. In Which Things Still Don't Make Much Sense

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not that things with Shadows ever do make sense, but right now, the kids aren't having the best day.

The next morning, it was just Ken, Nanako, and Koromaru in the house. “Did Uncle get called into work early again?” Ken asked while filling Koromaru’s bowl.

“That’s right. Have you seen the toaster anywhere?”

Ken still had yet to make very much headway into understanding how the kitchen was organized, but that was fine, because apparently the others didn’t entirely know, either. “Where do you usually put it?”

“In that cupboard over there, but now that’s where we keep food for Koro-chan…” Okay, yes, that explained it. Sort of. There really wasn’t much reason to go losing entire appliances.

“...It didn’t end up in the fridge, right?” He checked. He still wasn’t brave enough to try and venture into that particular realm of clutter. He actually thought there might have been something living in there…

Nanako actually checked. What was this world coming to? “...No, it’s… mostly empty. We’ll have to go shopping later. Oh! We can go to Junes!” She sounded happy.

While she got back to searching for the toaster, Ken paused in front of the television. Maybe it had just been the one at Junes, but…

He poked the screen. It rippled. Koromaru started growling at it.

“I found it!” Nanako cheered. “It was behind the coffee machine.” Ken could feel her gaze on him. “...Is something wrong?”

“I think I’m just taking a bit too long,” he lied. “Here you go, Koromaru.”

While there were problems inherent to the situation of his most reliable present ally being a dog, he couldn’t say changing the subject had ever been particularly difficult. Koromaru gave him a happy bark of thanks and started wolfing down his breakfast.

This felt like far too much effort to go through just for a piece of toast.

* * *

  
  


After school, Ren entered Ken’s classroom, visibly not having fully recovered from their ordeal yesterday.

“Ren-san, are you all right?” Ken asked, worried. Being an active Persona User was a tiring thing, even more so for those that had just started. He’d been one of the lucky ones, in that he hadn’t spent a great deal of time unconscious afterwards.

“I-I’m fine.” That would obviously be a lie even to someone who didn’t know what had happened the day before. “Just… can I talk with you somewhere private?”

Right. They’d probably need to have a conversation about what happened yesterday no matter what. “Let’s go then. Were you thinking of any place in particular, or could we just… go outside and hope nobody listens?” Odds were no one would have been bored enough to listen to them. Inaba was a small town, but it wasn’t that small.

“Just… outside’s fine. Or even the halls, if- if nobody’s there.” It was just after school, so there’d probably be people in the halls, but there was a basic point gotten across there. This was urgent.

“All right, then.” The two of them walked outside together, the situation starting to be familiar, even ignoring the return of the monsters from the realm of nightmares.

He’d expected the conversation to start with a comparison of their powers, or maybe an attempt at an agreement to never enter the TV again, which he would have declined for just long enough to figure out what the other world was and if there was anything that needed to be done with it.

He wasn’t expecting what Ren actually said. “That place we were yesterday… it was sort of familiar.”

“Familiar?” Had Ren been active during the Dark Hour, back when it existed? He seemed a bit young for that, but then, Ken had been awake in the Dark Hour since the time he was nine, so he didn’t exactly have a lot of room to talk there. “In what way?”

“Well… a while back, I had this dream that I was walking in a foggy place, and that world felt a lot like my dream. There was even that door there… and there was also another me.”

Okay, that was a direction he really didn’t expect the conversation to go in. “Another you?”

“Yeah. He- he looked just like me, except- except for the eyes. His were gold. He asked me to fight the fog, and- and I agreed. And- and last night…” He shuddered.

“Did something happen?” Ken wasn’t quite sure he was the person to go to for nightmares or anything, but he was also the only other Persona User in Inaba who was intelligible to humans. Some sacrifices had to be made.

“Well… the storm woke me up last night. And it was almost midnight, so… I thought I’d go see what that Midnight Channel thing was about. And there were two girls there. They looked almost exactly the same, but… one of them had golden eyes. And she-” He was crying now.

“Ren-san?”

“She killed her,” He gasped out. “And then, this morning, there were police sirens, and I didn’t go to look, but...” Okay. This was serious. Not that this had ever not been serious, but here was something he couldn’t just zap/Hamaon/Psiodyne away.

“Ren-san. You need to breathe.” That was a good first step, right? Usually he was on the other end of this kind of thing… “Do you think it had something to do with the other world?” Ren nodded. “Do you want to go back and look?”

“I… do you think we can? Even with those monsters… And what if we don’t find the bear again?”

“We’ll find him.” Even Ken was surprised by how quickly the answer came to him, and how sure he was of it. “But… that blue door you’ve mentioned… have you seen it outside the TV?” He knew Kotone and Minato were still switching out their Personas somehow…

“I… think I might have passed it in the shopping district before? On my way home from Junes? But I might have just… just been seeing things.”

“You should go look again. I’ve got to stop home for something before I can go to Junes today, but it shouldn’t take very long. You’ve got time. We can meet up again in the electronics section.” Hopefully, Ren wouldn’t lose his nerve.

This only left the question of what he was going to do without a spear.

* * *

  
  


There was, in fact, a floating, glowing blue door in the shopping district. Ren wondered how he hadn’t seen it earlier, but then, he’d been busy enjoying the fact that he had a friend to spend time with, for once.

...Also, the fact that it was just outside the metalworks, which probably wouldn’t sell to eleven-year-olds, even those who might have been getting into the habit of climbing through TV screens. Not much reason to pay attention, there.

Still, the door was there, and that meant he could go inside. He didn’t even need to take the key out of his pocket.

When he stepped through the door, he was back in the train car with its dark blue seats, rumbling steadily forward into the unknown. Igor was still sitting at his desk, though there were two girls in the seats on either side of him.

“Welcome back to the Velvet Room,” He greeted Ren, who nervously stepped closer to the desk. “We have been awaiting your return.”

Had he been putting it off for too long? “S-sorry. I’ve been busy with…” Well, messing around with Ken and trying to escape from the world inside of the television.

Igor waved off his concerns. “It is no matter. Your life is yours to live, and your time, yours to spend as you see fit. I only ask that you be cautious. The mystery surrounding the other world has already taken human lives in its approach towards you.”

Human lives. “Then Konishi-san’s actually-?” The sorrowful look on the man’s face told him all that he needed to know. “Then what am I supposed to do?”

The girl on Igor’s left side spoke up. She was about Ren’s age, with long silver hair, bright yellow eyes, and dark blue clothing the same shade as the rest of the room. “The key to this mystery may lie in the other world. But you must not neglect your bonds with others, either.”

“My… bonds?” He blinked. “Wait, who are you, anyway?”

“This is Lavenza, and the girl opposite of her is Marie. Together, the three of us will be providing assistance on your Journey.” That word… he could hear the capitalization. “But that, I fear, is for another time. I believe you have an appointment to keep?”

Right. He was supposed to meet Ken at Junes, and then they would visit the other world. Hopefully, they’d be able to find the bear and get out again.

It was almost exactly five minutes later that he realized he hadn’t really gotten much in the way of useful information.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ren: Stop being cryptic.  
> Igor: No.


	7. In Which Ken And Ren Return To The TV World

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping back into a world full of Shadows might not be the brightest idea, but hey, at least this time they know that's what they're doing!

“You brought your dog?” When Ken said he’d be picking up something from home, Ren thought he meant rope to use as a lifeline or something. Not Koromaru, who was admittedly doing a very good job of hiding, though at this point that was probably more due to a lack of customers.

“I thought he could help us.” Ken didn’t look at all concerned by the fact that he had just smuggled a dog into a department store, or how he’d apparently stolen a ski pole from the sports department.

“And what about the…?”

“It’s the closest I could find to a spear on such short notice.” First what he’d asked yesterday, now this… did he just really like pointy objects or something? “I… can’t get an actual one without having to answer some really awkward questions.”

Ren was pretty sure those questions included ‘why would a twelve-year-old need a spear’ and ‘why do you want to fight monsters in the first place?’ “Do you think you’ll need it?” He asked.

“I will if I want to stab things.” Why was he so insistent on stabbing things? “Getting things for Koromaru was easier.” Yes, it would presumably be easier to take knife places than a spear or a ski pole. “If you get a weapon, you should probably pick something small.”

“So, more knives, then?” He thought he could do that. Actually, that’d probably be really cool.

“If that’s what you want to use, I guess… but maybe it’d be better to avoid fighting until we know what’s going on. Unless we get cornered again, anyway…”

This wasn’t helping his confidence at all. “So… we just go back through the TV?” He ventured, facing the screen that had seemed so much less intimidating just two days ago.

“I guess so. Are you ready, Koromaru?”

“Arf!” Koromaru barked, before walking up to the TV and wriggling his way through the screen. Ren exchanged glances with Ken, and without a second thought, the two of them climbed through as well.

* * *

  
  


Sometimes, Ken wished he had someone older than him to help figure out what was going on. At the moment, he was just glad Ren hadn’t thought to question why a dog could climb through television screens, because this probably wasn’t the best time to get into a discussion on his history with Personas. It was the sort of thing that really deserved its own weekend.

He was expecting the sharp drop this time, and managed to land in a way that was halfway dignified. Ren went one step further, and actually stuck the landing with more grace than really should have been possible.

The world was blanketed in fog. This, at least, was not unexpected. In a world of white and gray, Koromaru was nearly invisible, but Ken could still sense him pacing in front of them, alert for danger.

There was a repetitive squeaking coming from behind. “You again!?” It was the Shadow bear. “Don’t you realize how dangerous it is here?” He sounded genuinely concerned for their well-being.

“That’s… the reason we’re here, actually,” Ren replied. “It’s… I think this place has something to do with people- with them showing up dead in our world. So- so we need to find out what happened.”

“...Are you talking about the people that were here earlier?” The bear asked.

Ken blinked. “Did you see them?” Okay, with how thick the fog was, that was a pretty stupid question…

“Of course not! The Shadows were really agitated where they showed up, and I’m just a little bear. I can’t- I can’t fight them.” He shivered, as though the very thought scared him.

The idea of him being unable to fight was hard to believe, he’d never met a Shadow that was completely helpless, but the bear’s form was all round shapes and plush fur. He was… actually really cute.

“But do you know where they were?” He nodded eagerly.

“I haven’t been back since it happened, but I think the Shadows are starting to settle down again… for the time being, at least.”

“Could you lead us there?” Aigis would kill him if she found out he was making friends with a Shadow… but what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her. “If you take us to where the last person was, we might be able to find something.”

“It’d be better than wandering lost in this fog…” Ren sighed, with Koromaru whining in agreement. “I keep worrying I’m going to trip on something…”

“You can’t see? That is a problem…” The bear paused to think for a moment, before taking off his head and pulling some small objects out of his body. “I know! You can use these! I’ve even got something for your doggy!”

Ken was understandably wary of wearing anything that had just come out of a Shadow’s body, even if this one was being surprisingly coherent and helpful. But Ren slipped on the pair of round glasses he was given, and immediately gaped at the world around him.

“Ken-senpai, you have to put yours on now! It’s like the fog’s not even there!”

...Well, the bear had yet to do anything to hurt them so far… He slipped the orange frames onto his face blinking as the flat expanse of white faded into an abandoned TV studio. Or… maybe not abandoned, but… Unused to begin with.

Fitting Koromaru with the gray goggles he’d been handed was a bit more difficult, but he managed it eventually.

“This is really helpful. Thank you, um… do you have a name?” This was probably something he should have asked sooner…

“I’m Teddie! Who are you?” He tilted his head- well, his entire body- to the side, ears twitching.

“I’m Ken. And these are Ren and Koromaru.” Ren nodded along with him. Koromaru barked. “It’s nice to meet you, Teddie.” He couldn’t be rude to the one Shadow who could help them out of there. Especially not when he was being nothing but helpful. “I’m glad you’ll be helping us.”

“We might even get straight answers out of him…” Ren grumbled. Ken wasn’t sure what he’d been doing earlier, but apparently it hadn’t gotten the results he’d hoped for. “Like what this place is.”

“This place? It is what it is. It doesn’t have a name… at least, I don’t think so. But it’s not safe for humans, especially if they’re unprebeared!”

Ken tried to pretend he wasn’t at least slightly bothered by the fact that his weapon was a ski pole. He wasn’t sure just how successful he was.

“We’ll… probably be safer than most people,” He said instead. “Even if I’m… not sure how they’d get here. I don’t think they should be able to, without a Persona.” It wasn’t like he could call back to Iwatodai and ask for verification, at the moment.

“Arf!” He was going to take that as an agreement.

“...As long as I can use Eiha, it should be fine,” Ren stated, shuffling in place a little. It occurred to Ken that maybe he shouldn’t have brought him here unarmed, potentially a Wild Card or not. If he didn’t have any idea what was going on, then he almost certainly had just the one Persona, anyway. “Besides… we’ll be working together, right, Ken-senpai?”

“Of course!” Why would he think otherwise? Just because he wasn’t as experienced didn’t mean it wouldn’t be helpful to have a third person around. More than that, they were friends. Friends didn’t leave friends to die in a world filled with Shadows. He turned back to Teddie. “Lead the way.”

“All right! Kenny! Renren! Koro-chan! Follow me!” He turned and walked off, a new squeak echoing with every footstep. The two of them glanced at each other.

“...Kenny?”

“Renren?”

“Arf!” Koromaru trotted away after the Shadow, leaving the two still-bewildered humans to follow after them.

* * *

  
  


“Ken-senpai?”

“What is it?”

“You said that only Persona Users should be able to go through the TV.” Right… he’d mentioned that.

“I did.”

“And… Koromaru went through the TV on his own, earlier.”

“Koromaru has a Persona, just like us,” He explained. “He’s had Cerberus since before I got him, but… there hasn’t been much chance for either of us to use our Personas.” Not for a very long time, and he wasn’t particularly interested in talking about the last time he was summoning Kala-Nemi regularly. “I’ve had Kala-Nemi since I was eleven.” And, before that, Nemesis, but Ken definitely didn’t know Ren well enough to talk to him about Nemesis. “But even in the city, this sort of thing doesn’t really happen.”

Was this specific enough? Or would he have to go into the things he’d thought he’d never have to tell anyone again?

“...I see.” Ren turned to him, a slight smile on his face. “I guess that makes you my senpai in more ways than one, huh?”

Ken could feel the blood rushing to his cheeks. “D-don’t say that! It feels weird!” He was used to being the youngest Persona User in the group. Not the oldest. He wasn’t even sure how that had happened.

...Well, okay, it had happened because he tripped and fell into a television. But if that hadn’t happened, he was sure he’d be living a normal, everyday life while Akihiko and/or Mitsuru eventually made an incredibly poor attempt at stealth.

“Kenny, Renren, hurry up!” Teddie called back to them. “We’re almost there!” Excellent. A way of distracting himself from that conversation.

The place they arrived at looked very familiar. “Is this… the shopping district?” Ren glanced around. “See, there’s the old hobby shop, the closed music store… I think that building used to be a sporting goods place…”

Ken, being new in town, had no idea what he was talking about. “They’re all closed down.” Every building, except for the one at the end of the street.

“Yeah, a lot of places have been closing lately…”

**_“It’s all because of that store.”_ ** The voice came from nowhere, or maybe from the whole world around them.

As soon as it started, more voices joined in.  **_“You know the Konishi girl, Saki-chan? I’ve heard she’s working there.”_ **

**_“Really? But she seemed like such a good daughter… How could she betray her parents like that?”_ **

**_“They must be so ashamed of her…”_ **

“These voices…” Ren glanced around, as if searching for the source of them. “Where are they coming from? And why does everything look like this?”

“I don’t know,” Teddie replied. “I just know that this place is reality for the one who’s here. Or… it was, until…” Until whoever had come here had died.

Koromaru sniffed at the air, before barking in the direction of the one open store on the street.

Honestly, it seemed as good a place to look for clues as anywhere else.

* * *

  
  


The pseudo-liquor store looked the same as it had on the Midnight Channel, smashed in shelf where the golden-eyed Saki had thrown the regular one into it and all. There were broken glass bottles strewn about the floor, and Koromaru whimpered as he navigated around them.

Ren, being very much underage, wasn’t sure how well this building corresponded to the one in his reality, but… “This is where it happened,” He stated, staring at the broken shelf. “This is where Konishi-san died.” His stomach twisted at the memory. Arsene rumbled within him, reminding him to stay strong. They still had a long way to go.

“A lot of Shadows gathered here, then,” Teddie said. “I don’t think they would have attacked her before the fog lifted, but when it did…”

“You said something like that before,” Ken noted, “About the fog lifting. What do you mean by that?” Ren wasn’t sure when his life had reached the point of trying to get answers from an empty bear suit, but apparently that was happening now.

“When it’s foggy in your world, the fog here clears. And that’s when the Shadows get violent…” Teddie started shaking in fear.

“They seemed pretty violent yesterday…” If he’d gotten so much as clipped by an ice spell…

“They’re not normally like that! Even when that girl was here, they ignored her until the fog lifted! Maybe it’s something about you that makes them so upset.”

“You mean our Personas?” Ken suggested.

“Bear...sona?” He could have sworn that word was mentioned in front of him before…

“It’s a power we have. Ken-senpai thinks it’s why we can come to this world, though… for people like Konishi-san, wouldn’t someone else have to be pushing them?”

“Ren-san, two bodies were found within five days of each other, and the second was probably the person who found the first. I’m pretty sure that’s not a coincidence.” Okay, fair.

Ren stepped around the counter to see something poking out from behind one of the boxes. “Wait… is this…?” He pulled out a pair of wrenches. “What are these doing here?”

Teddie shrugged helplessly. “I’m not sure,” Ken admitted. “But I guess you’ve got something to hit Shadows with now, if you have to.” Immediately, Koromaru started barking out the door. “...And I guess you’re going to have to.”

At least hitting floating mouths was something that he already knew how to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddie is an Experience. Even when he's not interacting with someone who has terminal Foot-in-Mouth Disease.
> 
> Ken, as much as he loves SEES, doesn't really want to talk about the sort of things he did with them. Probably for good reason.


	8. In Which A Promise Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Having reached a dead end, there's no choice but for them to wait for something to happen. Ken is less than thrilled about this.

There wasn’t anything in the twisted shopping district to tell them who was shoving people into televisions. Ren supposed that was only to be expected, but it was still a little disappointing. Teddie led them back to where they’d fallen in, his feet continuing to squeak with every step.

“It’s too bad we couldn’t find anything useful…” Ken sighed. “But at least there weren’t that many Shadows.”

Ren nodded. “If we want to find out who caused this… maybe we have to wait for someone else to end up here, and ask them… if we can get to them on time.” He wasn’t sure if they could. They were just a couple of kids, a dog, and a bear. Not exactly what one would consider superhero material.

“That does sound hard…” Teddie admitted. “But… you’re still going to try, right? If you can stop people getting thrown in, maybe my world can go back to the way it was.”

“The… way it was?”

“This used to be a beary peaceful place. But ever since the first person ended up here, it’s just been a mess! I-I just want to live here peacefully…” He seemed almost on the verge of tears.

“Y-you can still do that!” How was he supposed to cheer him up? He’d never been in this situation before. “You just… have to help us figure out what’s going on. ...And maybe let us out again…”

“...If I do… you’ll really come back and help me?” Well, Ren was pretty sure he was contractually obligated to do so, somehow…

Ken sighed. “I get the feeling you’re not going to leave us much of a choice…” Ren wasn’t sure why he was worried. Once the two of them left this world, technically they’d never have to come back here again. “...I guess we’d have to come back through the same TV to reach this spot again?”

Teddie nodded. “Right! So you’d better be careful not to end up somewhere I can’t get to you. Otherwise, you’ll be doooomed.” Was that supposed to be threatening? “And- and you’ll absolutely, certainly come back, right?”

“Didn’t we just say we would?” Ren had no idea why this had to keep being repeated.

“But do you promise?” The bear asked, eyes somehow larger than they’d already been.

“We promise.” And with that, there was a crashing sound in the back of Ren’s mind, followed by the faintest flickerings of the Fool Arcana.

* * *

  
  


So much for having a quiet year.

Ken said goodbye to Ren, and returned the ski pole he’d taken to the sports department. He’d probably have to find something a bit more permanent by summer, or else figure out how to justify a twelve-year-old randomly purchasing a ski pole, but it’d do for now.

Koromaru continued to successfully hide from store staff. As long as there weren't large amounts of dog fur lying around in one specific spot, Ken was cautiously optimistic that maybe they could keep this up.

Still, it was hard to be completely reassured. He’d never been part of such a small team before, and even Teddie appeared to be about his age at most, mentally. How was he supposed to handle this?

...Well, he supposed there were a few people he could ask about this. One of them could probably even be trusted not to hop a train to Inaba at the earliest opportunity. He took out his phone and started texting.

_ Amada Ken: You never went into Tartarus when it was just three of you, did you? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: No, we weren’t that suicidal. Why do you ask? _

_ Amada Ken: No real reason. I was just curious. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...Does this have anything to do with why you were asking Koto for a spear yesterday? _

_ Amada Ken: I’m choosing not to answer that. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ….Of course you are. Try not to get into too much trouble. _

_ Amada Ken: I won’t go into any fights I don’t think I can get myself out of. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: You have no idea just how not reassuring that is. _

He thought he had some idea of that, actually. Shinjiro had grown up with Akihiko, after all, and Akihiko was not a low-stress person to be friends with. He’d mostly grown past the habit of punching things he shouldn’t… but he relapsed, sometimes.

_ Amada Ken: I’m not Akihiko-san. I’ll be careful. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: You’d better. Stay safe, kid. _

So this clearly wasn’t the ideal situation to be in. At least he still didn’t think he’d have to worry about the rest of SEES showing up and conducting a raid on the Junes electronics department.

A crack of thunder interrupted his thoughts, and he sighed. At least he was in a good place to get an umbrella…

* * *

  
  


By the time they made it back to the house, Koromaru’s fur was plastered to his body by the rain. There was mud, too, from where he couldn’t be convinced not to poke his nose in the neighbors’ gardens, but his eyes still shone as brightly as ever.

“Koro-chan, you’re all messy!” Nanako greeted them when they returned. Ken found himself grinning at her.

“Do you want to learn how to give him a bath?” It’d be a soapy mess, of course, bathtime for Koromaru always was, but it’d be a fun mess. Besides, between the rain, Shadow goop, and probably some amount of alcohol from those cracked bottles, he needed a change of clothes anyway.

Ken’s uncle took in the picture in front of him with an unreadable look on his face. “Where have you been, today?” He asked, and Ken had to try and think of an answer that didn’t involve televisions, Shadows, and stolen ski poles.

“I was out with Ren-san. He’s been showing me around the town.” He didn’t think his uncle would follow up by asking Ren’s parents where their son spent his time, which was good, because the two had never collaborated to come up with any sort of excuse. “We didn’t notice the weather was getting bad until it had already started raining.”

A sigh. “You should be more careful,” He was told. “Especially with everything that’s been happening lately.” As if on cue, the news switched to a story about the murders. Plural.

It wasn’t the first time Ken had been in this sort of situation, but that didn’t make it any easier.

“Don’t worry. I’ll be fine,” He promised, thinking of how, to get Shadows to flee from him, he’d just have to show them a glimpse of his full power.

This didn’t seem to be helping matters. “I know things are different in this city, but this really isn’t a good time to be out late, especially at your age.” And there it was.

It wasn’t the first time Ken had been dismissed because of his age. Often, the spears he carried were taller than he was, and that didn’t exactly lend itself to others taking him seriously. But it had abated, in time, as he’d grown and proven himself as a Persona User.

And now he was back to this. He made his apologies, showed Nanako how to wash Koromaru, and collapsed on the couch in his bedroom so he could watch the Midnight Channel.

The image was shrouded in static.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddie is a child. I think we can all agree upon this, even if the Investigation Team in canon never quite cottoned on and went on being horrible influences. Here, he is simply one of the group's many children, who are, admittedly, still maybe not surrounded by the best influences.


	9. In Which Ren Goes On A Supply Run

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just because they can't get into the TV doesn't mean they aren't allowed to be productive. Some a bit more than others.

There was a major electronics sale that day. They couldn’t go to Junes.

“I checked the weather,” Ren stated. “They say there’s no chance of fog tomorrow.”

“Weather reports can be wrong.” Ken didn’t know the girl who had appeared on the screen, knew the names of precious few people in Inaba, but that didn’t mean he wanted her to show up on a telephone pole. “But I guess we can just hope things will be okay.”

It was just a day. The sale would end, and then they could return to the other world and talk with Teddie. He just had to remind himself of that.

“I guess we can’t just go use our Personas every day.” Ren adjusted his glasses. Ken wasn’t sure why he was still wearing them, there was no fog to peek past, but he wasn’t about to question anyone’s coping methods, when Minato always used his headphones to drown out the world, Kotone got Akihiko to teach her to punch her problems away, and Fuuka carried an Evoker with her at all times. He’d brought Koromaru to Inaba with him because sometimes he just needed something to hug. Being a Persona User wasn’t easy.

He shook his head. “No, we’ll get sick really easily if that happens. I think… that’s what the fog does. Or maybe Shadows in general…” Tartarus had had a similar feeling, after all. “...Besides, I don’t think my uncle would like it if I disappeared three afternoons in a row. I don’t want to make him worry.”

Ren slumped against the wall. “So… we can’t do anything, then?”

“I wouldn’t say that…” He thought back, tried to recall what the members of SEES would do on the days leading up to the full moons. “It’d be nice to have some proper supplies.”

“Supplies?”

“You know, medicine, snacks, maybe something to wear that won’t get torn if we meet anything with claws…” Snacks would be easy enough to get. Proper medicine, a bit less simple. Armor would be almost impossible to come by, and while Ken still had some from his SEES days, he’d definitely grown out of it by now. “Proper weapons would be nice, too, but I don’t think anyone would sell them to us.” Maybe Tanaka, but that would still leave the issue of having them delivered. He’d still watch the show, though, just in case there was anything useful.

“Probably not,” Ren agreed. “Do you think drinks from the vending machines would help? The shopping district has lots of them.”

Drinks made good spiritual refreshment. Mostly because spiritual refreshment was so difficult to come by. “If you get a lot of them, but I’m not sure we have that much money… Also, people might get upset if you buy out all the vending machines.” Still, it wasn’t like they’d have to go home after just an hour. “...A few might be nice, though. If only because we might be there for a while.” Dehydration was never something he’d had to worry about before, but he supposed there was a first time for everything.

“Okay.” Ren had a notebook out, now, and was furiously scribbling away. Ken hoped he wasn’t going to need it for any of his classes. “Vending machine drinks, snacks from Shiroku-san… Should I pick up some dog treats, too?”

Well, when it was that or spending an hour looking up various ingredients lists… “Go ahead. We can also give him things that are just meat, so long as there aren’t any bones in them.”

In hindsight, the idea of this kind of supply run really was something that should have come to him sooner.

* * *

  
  


If there had been one good thing about sneaking around Junes, it was the fact that Ren didn’t have to worry about people looking at him- he’d be just another face in the crowd. They wouldn’t think anything special about him except maybe that it was a bit odd that a kid his age was shopping alone. The spaces were bright, and open, and full of people, except in places where it was better they weren’t.

Shiroku-san’s store was different. It was dark, and cramped, and it was rare that there would be more than one customer at a time- three at most. Maybe it was different after dark, but Ren wasn’t allowed on the streets then, anyway.

But there were things Shiroku-san had that Junes didn’t. Rolls of bandages, packages of chewing gum, curious objects that Ren wasn’t sure what they did, but that caused Arsene to stir, so he picked some up because they felt useful. Frozen ice cubes, and old charms, and small fireworks that he probably shouldn’t have been allowed to purchase at his age, but that Shiroku-san sold to him anyway.

“Now, I’d better not hear you’ve been getting into too much trouble with them,” She warned him, and he nodded, because even if he did get into trouble with them, he’d be in another world where there was no reason for anyone to hear about it, let alone the odd shopkeeper who sold a bit of everything, collected precious gems, and doted over her pet fish.

“I’ll be good,” He promised, and meant it. Saving people from dying the way Konishi-san did was a good thing, after all.

Shiroku-san gave him a sly, knowing smile, except she couldn’t possibly know about the sort of things he and Ken had planned. “You take care of yourself, now.”

With his bags full of food, and medical supplies, and things with a purpose he had yet to understand, Ren thought that he just might have been able to.

* * *

  
  


While Ren was out gathering supplies, Ken’s efforts were a bit more personal. And heavy. Books on psychology, and mythology, and stories that might or might not have been the basis for Ren’s Persona weren’t the lightest thing in the world to begin with, let alone when he had ten of them, stacked in such a way that he couldn’t really see.

“Hey, d’you need some help with that?” He was surprised, and almost dropped his books, but there was Tatsumi Kanji, as strangely familiar as he’d been at their first meeting.

“That- would you?” He was willing to admit he may have gone a bit overboard, particularly when he’d gotten them not necessarily for himself, but more so that Ren would be able to use them for reference later. Not that he couldn’t use the refresher, but once the immediate crisis was over, it’d be nice to go over them with his friend and discuss how it could apply to them. Bonding over having Personas without needing to use them. “That’d be great. Thank you.”

A bit over half of Ken’s burden was removed, leaving him able to actually see the street in front of him. “It’s not a problem. Though… I’m surprised you ain’t even a little scared of me.”

“Why would I be scared?” Sure, he looked a bit intimidating, but Ken knew for a fact just how little that could really mean. Besides, Kala-Nemi told him to trust him. “You remind me of some of my senpai.”

“Wha- Really?”

He nodded. “Akihiko-san and Shinjiro-san. They’re sort of twins, but not really?” He needed to find a better way to explain that one day. “I mean, they’re closer than the actual set of twins, but Minato-san and Kotone-san only found out they were related the December before last, so…” Okay, when he put it like that, it sounded like he’d been living in a soap opera.

...Honestly, it kind of felt like it, at times. Even if most soap operas tended not to involve massive battles for the fate of the world.

“...Yeah, you lost me.”

“That’s fine. I-I didn’t expect you to really understand, anyway.” He sort of wished he had, because it’d be nice to have someone to share things with without just throwing everything at Ren or fumbling around with his phone, but it wasn’t like his life had ever been simple to understand. “I’m… pretty sure most people wouldn’t call it a normal year.” Really, the only people who would were those that had lived with the Dark Hour for as long as it had been a thing, and even they would probably think twice about it. The year that came after had been much nicer.

Neither of them seemed to know any way to continue talking, and the conversation died there. But by the time Ken reached his uncle’s house, he’d still come to a realization. Two of them, even.

First, Tatsumi Kanji definitely had Akihiko vibes to him. It wasn’t in any way that Ken could explain. It just was.

Second, despite this familiarity, he actually acted a lot more like Shinjiro.

* * *

  
  


When Ryotaro returned home that evening, he found his nephew with a large number of books spread out on the table, explaining to Nanako the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. It wasn’t a sight he’d ever expected to see, but then, it wasn’t like he’d had the chance to get to know Ken all that well.

The dog barked when he came in the door, and the children looked up at him. “Welcome home!” Nanako beamed, while Ken remained silent, but smiling all the same. “Dad! Ken’s really good at telling stories!”

“I-I wouldn’t say I’m that great…” Ken muttered, blushing and looking away. “It’s just that I know some of these stories really well already.”

“Oh? Which ones?” It was good to take an interest in this kind of thing, right?

“Well, it’s more about… specific figures. Io, Nemesis, Orpheus and Eurydice, Castor and Polydeuces, Hermes…” He listed them off, counting on his fingers. “Medea, too, a little bit… Maybe Chronos?” He just sounded confused, when he said the last one. “They’re all… really interesting.”

...Well. He supposed a kid ought to have a hobby.

* * *

  
  


That night, the Midnight Channel came on again. The picture was a lot clearer than Ken was used to. The exact ‘show’ was… very confusing.

On the bright side, there was no fog or sirens the next morning, so at least there was still time.

Really, that was all he was asking for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have problems picturing Ren without glasses, so there. Problem solved.
> 
> The exact relationship dynamics of SEES can generally be determined by what would be the most awkward for Ken to have to explain to others. Even if he's telling the full truth.
> 
> Let's all take a moment to appreciate that the timeline where Dojima doesn't at least slightly suspect his nephew of murder is the one where, at one point, his nephew was genuinely contemplating murder.


	10. In Which A Castle Is Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two kids, a Shadow, and a dog embark on a rescue mission.

Anyone who went to Junes in the earlier hours in the morning would be surprised to see a pair of preteen boys waiting for the elevator, an albino shiba hiding just out of sight. The two had both woken up and left their homes as soon as they could get away with it, meeting up at the front entrance.

“I see you got us some supplies,” Ken noted, seeing the bulging backpack Akira was carrying, as well as a smaller satchel that was handed over to him.

“Here. In case… In case something happens to me.” Ren’s voice shook, but he didn’t seem to be afraid. “I heard that the girl from the inn went missing. She’s the one who was on the Midnight Channel last night.”

Ken would honestly have preferred not to think about the previous night’s Midnight Channel. He might have listened when the others told him not to listen too closely to the things that Junpei said, but he still picked up enough to know that it probably hadn’t been something the two of them should have been watching.

“Do you know her?” He asked, instead.

“Not personally, but she used to visit the textile shop all the time. I think she might have been friends with Kanji-san, once. Still… she never acted like the person on the Midnight Channel.”

Of course not. Shadows could be tricky like that, even if Ken had never personally encountered any like that. He supposed that it had to happen eventually.

The elevator arrived, and dinged open. The two of them hurried inside with Koromaru, pressing the button for the floor they wanted and closing the door as quickly as they could.

“I’ll have to stop by the sports department for a ski pole, but after that, we should be good to go.” At least, as much as they could be, when they were just a couple of kids with no real backing.

“You didn’t keep the one from yesterday?”

“I didn’t want my uncle to question it. I just got here, and now people are turning up dead or missing. I don’t think that’s ever a good sign.”

“And you think he’d think you did it? You’re twelve!” As if he didn’t know that already. As if he didn’t realize that, due to his young age, he’d be considered below suspicion unless he did something incredibly stupid and incriminating, like waving around weapons in the middle of the food court.

Still, if the only reason he was dismissed was due to being young, he thought he’d almost rather be suspected.

Especially when, in his case, that reason wouldn’t even be a valid one.

* * *

  
  


“You came back!” Teddie’s elation was visible in his eyes even before the Persona Users had fully recovered from the landing.

“Of course we did,” Ren replied, readjusting his backpack so it was more comfortable after almost landing on it. “We promised, remember? We even have supplies this time.”

The bear nodded, eyeing Ren’s backpack, and the satchel he’d given Ken, full of snacks and bandages and just a few odd trinkets of unknown purpose. “Wow! You two look really prebeared!”

“The girl from our town’s inn disappeared,” Ken explained. “We’re not sure when it happened, and we couldn’t get here yesterday, but that means we had time to get this stuff.”

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed. Koromaru always seemed to agree with Ken.

“I see, I see…” Teddie began to pace back and forth, sniffing the air. Eventually, he drew to a halt. “I’ve got it! There’s someone here, and they’re this way!” He pointed victoriously out of the empty studio, took three steps forward, and tripped over a camera cable, before helplessly rolling away. “...Kenny! Renren! Help me!”

This did not inspire confidence in his tracking abilities. But Ren still hurried forward and pulled the bear to his feet. “Are you all right?”

“Y-yeah… I’m fine now. Thanks, Renren!” One of these days, he needed to ask him what was with the nicknames.

“You should be more careful,” Ken warned. “If you get tripped up, we might not be able to go back for you, and then we’re all in trouble. If something happens to you, the rest of us can’t go home.” It sounded like he put a lot of thought into it.

“Don’t worry, Kenny. That’s why I have these!” Ren was sure that, someday, he’d be used to an empty bear suit opening himself up to bring stuff out, but that day was not today. “Goho-Ms! They’ll get us out of trouble in a flash!”

“Oh! Like Traesto Gems!”

He had no idea what a Traesto Gem was, but maybe this wasn’t the time to ask.

It sort of seemed like it would never be the time for that. Ren reminded himself that he’d been a Persona User for less than a week, and that Ken had been one for much longer. Of course there’d be things that he didn’t know.

Besides, little things like what a Traesto Gem was didn’t matter. What mattered was that the objects Teddie carried were called Goho-Ms, and that apparently they’d be useful.

The rest, Ren was sure he could learn in time.

* * *

  
  


Even if they hadn’t seen the Midnight Channel, there would have been no doubt that they’d found what they were looking for. “It seemed so much smaller on the TV…” Ren breathed, looking up at the towers of the castle.

Ken was less impressed. Ken had never visited any castles before, but he had seen a tower, climbed it, up hundreds and hundreds of stairs until he stood in a place almost directly underneath the moon. He’d never been able to accurately judge the height of it, but this castle… it couldn’t be any bigger than Thebel, if even that.

But Ren had probably never seen anything like this before. Ken knew he would have remembered a kid his age wandering the Dark Hour in Iwatodai.

Teddie didn’t appear to notice anything special about the castle at all, but then, he was a Shadow. Structures like this were probably his whole life.

Koromaru probably just cared about the fact that the structure was positively swarming with Shadows. Ken didn’t have Mitsuru or Fuuka’s scanning capabilities, but he could still sense that much.

A Shadow, a probable new Wild Card, and two experienced Persona Users, one of which happened to be a dog. Probably not the worst team composition in the world, but it could definitely have been better.

“How far do you think we’ll have to go?” Ren asked.

Ken shrugged. “There can’t be more than fourteen floors to it. Probably less. The real question is how far in we’ll have to go to find the person.” It clearly wouldn’t be the same as when people would be scattered throughout Tartarus, listless and in need of rescue. “Somehow, I don’t think she’ll be on the first floor.” That would just be too easy.

“I smell a lot of Shadows in there…” Teddie sounded scared, more scared than Ken had thought it was possible for a Shadow to be. But then, he wasn’t an ordinary Shadow. Ryoji hadn’t been one, either. Maybe it was best to just disregard what he knew.

“We can fight them, though,” Ren pointed out, tightly gripping the wrenches in his hand. “Like we did the other day. And… maybe you can help us too?”

“In a fight? Nuh-uh! I’ve got no muscles!” It was hard to deny that. They’d both seen inside the bear, and he was empty. “Oh, but I can give you moral support from a safe distance!”

“Can you keep track of what our enemies are weak to?” Ken found himself asking. It felt like a lot, when this being was so helpful to them already, but it’d be useful, especially if Ren actually did turn out to be a Wild Card. “I have three elements, and Koromaru has two, so we might forget which ones we should use.” Kouha, Zio, Psi, Eiha, Agi… Even if Ren was limited to just the one Persona, at least they had options available to them.

“I-I think I can do that… Yeah! I’m going to remember all of the enemies!”

It was nice to see that at least one of them was enthusiastic about this.

* * *

  
  


There were different Shadows about, than Ken was used to. Giant floating mouths with patterns of stripes, fish that swam through the sky.

There were no Mayas anywhere that he could see, and when he asked Teddie about it, the bear just looked at him and asked, “What’s a Maya?” He supposed that answered his question well enough.

Ren bashed in the head of one of the fish Shadows with a wrench, and then froze in a way that was sort of familiar, if not something that Ken had ever put much thought towards. He blinked, and shook his head and turned to him, uncertain.

“Is something wrong?” He asked, wondering if he already knew the answer, desperately hoping that he did.

“Ken-senpai… Is it… can people have more than one Persona?” If he hadn’t already suspected, he might have talked about resolution, in as vague of terms as he possibly could, Arisato Minato and Shiomi Kotone being nothing more than afterthoughts. Or maybe he would have talked about Wild Cards either way, because the alternative would be telling Ren about how his Persona hadn’t always been Kala-Nemi.

But Ken didn’t have to know what he would have done then, because he’d already heard his friend talking about a strange, floating blue door made out of light. “It’s not normal,” He said, even if two-fifths of SEES had been like that, because SEES would laugh at anyone who dared to call them normal. “But… it’s not wrong, either. It just means your powers are different- people like you are called Wild Cards.”

Nobody asked him how he knew this.

Teddie hopped along, glancing about for Shadows that hadn’t come out yet. “So Renren’s special?”

Ken just nodded. Koromaru voiced his agreement in his own way.

“Arf!”

* * *

  
  


Before they could climb many stairs, they encountered a princess.

Amagi Yukiko had always been one of the prettiest girls in her age group. Ren hadn’t met with a lot of those girls to make comparisons, but that was what people always said, so he went along with it. On the occasions when he saw her passing by, she dressed simply, but it suited her.

The giant pink dress and golden eyes very much did not suit her.

“You’re not the one I was waiting for,” She complained at their approach. “You aren’t princes, you’re just children!” Koromaru growled at her. “...And two horrid beasts.”

“H-Hey! What do you mean by that!?” Teddie asked, and Ren wouldn’t have been surprised if, had he turned around, there’d be large, comical tears in the bear’s eyes. His hurt certainly sounded real enough.

“Just because I’m a kid doesn’t mean I can’t fight,” Ken grumbled, which would probably have been a lot more threatening if he wasn’t wielding a ski pole. The princess ignored him.

“Well, maybe if I search higher, my actual prince will come! At the very least, it will certainly weed out the… undesirables.” She turned to leave.

“Wait! Where’s-” And she was already gone.

“...What do you think the odds are we’ll find the actual Amagi-san on the top floor of this place?”

“If we don’t, I’ll be very surprised.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Sorry, Yukiko, but I don't think Chie's going to be showing up here. She's just a bit Not Part of the Team.


	11. In Which Ren Doesn't Fully Understand Ken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, being experienced with a certain line of work can be very helpful. Other times, it's a bit less so.
> 
> Whichever it is, Ken's experience can be a bit obvious at times.

Besides the things they’d brought in from the inside- snacks which somehow healed, drinks that left them spiritually rejuvenated- they found things inside the castle. Small, red chests that could be pried open for more small items.

The items weren’t things Ren had ever thought would be classified as treasure- a few more packs of gum, a handful of peach pits, another Goho-M, though they had yet to use the first- but they weren’t heavy, and there was a bit of extra space in the bags, so they went along with it.

Teddie and Koromaru were good at sniffing out Shadows, but the treasure, if they could call it that, was something that they only found if they stumbled across it.

Ken always seemed disappointed when they opened them. “I mean, I guess we can use them to heal, but… it just doesn’t seem like it’ll be enough.” Ren tactfully didn’t mention that he’d recommended that they feed his dog steak croquettes, in absence of other guaranteed canine-safe healing options.

“It’s better than nothing,” He said instead. “And it’ll probably go faster than stopping for a lunch break.” Not that he was against the idea of stopping for lunch- they needed to eat at some point during the day- but he didn’t want to spend any more time in this castle filled with fog than he needed to, even if his glasses let him see past them.

A bird screeched in the distance. Ken sighed, and mimed shooting himself. Ren had no idea why he used that gesture, and he wasn’t about to ask. It seemed like something really personal.

Kala-Nemi appeared, and the lightning strike that followed was enough for Ren’s hair to stand on end. “Sorry,” Ken apologized, seeing his frizzy look. “I’ll try and hold back a little more.”

It was strange, that one of them could be so not afraid of the monsters that he felt he was allowed to hold back.

Teddie shivered, though the air wasn’t cold at all. “Kenny’s scary…”

“I- I don’t think he’s trying to be.” Though it was hard to argue that he wasn’t intimidating when he had just used a ski pole to spear a fish that was twice the size of Koromaru. “And at least, if he’s scary, he’s being scary on- on our side, right?”

And then Kala-Nemi faded, and Ken leaned over to pet Koromaru, looking for all the world like another kid who had just thought this would be a fun adventure, or maybe just the right thing to do.

If he was, it was probably the second one. All semblances of fun had vanished the moment that the princess did.

* * *

  
  


Sometimes, it was clear that Ken knew more than he let on.

“Don’t open that!” He pulled Ren away from another red chest, which looked the same as the others, except Koromaru was growling at it. “Listen. Do you hear anything strange?”

Ren listened. The castle, in general, was silent, but from that box… “Are those… chains?”

“If you open that box… we’re going to die.” He sounded completely serious about it, staring at the box like it had threatened him personally. “Teddie, do you feel it?”

Teddie sniffed the air, before flinching back. “Yikes! That’s one grizzly Shadow!” Koromaru had yet to stop growling at the box.

“What are we going to do about it?” Ren asked, because even if he’d yet to hear the story behind it, he was sure that Ken would have the answer.

“...Ignore it. If we ignore it, and find the stairs as quickly as we can, then we won’t have to deal with it. ...Also, we should probably close the door behind us, just in case.”

Maybe seeking out chests was a bit more trouble than it was worth.

* * *

  
  


They got into a routine, of sorts. Ken would dodge Mudo, and threw Hama right back in return. Koromaru would do the opposite. Ren did whatever was needed, his soul feeling cramped with the addition of so many extra Personas in such a short period of time. Pixie for lightning, Angel for wind. Ukobach for fire, Apsaras for ice.

When possible, he still preferred to call on Arsene. It just felt right, that he would draw on that piece of himself more than any other, even as it left his palms stinging when he threw ice cubes at beetles. Battles were simple.

The really complicated part came on the sixth floor. Ren kicked at the nearest door, hoping that would be enough to unlock it. “Are any of them going to open?”

“I hope one of them does, eventually…” Ken sighed. “I’m tired of getting warped around…” Koromaru gave a tired whine, even as Teddie collapsed on his back.

“I’m not… sure I can go on…”

“I have Revival Beads.” Ren wasn’t sure what those were, but Ken pulled something out of his pocket that almost appeared to catch the light. “Also, some food, but… Ren-san, do you think it’s close to lunchtime yet?”

“I think that should wait until we’re not getting teleported everywhere.” Motion sickness was not fun. “...Also, maybe in a place with less Shadows, but I don’t think that’ll be happening.” He was starting to run out of ice cubes, which could also have been a problem. If they ended up leaving the castle, he wasn’t sure he’d want to go back for a few days.

Koromaru nosed Teddie’s paw. “Go away, Koro-chan. I’m moping.”

“You can get all the rest you want once we’re not in the hall,” Ren promised. “...At least, once we’ve gotten rid of any Shadows in there. So long as there aren’t any chains.” Why did that even have to come up?

Ken hauled Teddie to his feet, and the group of four set off down the hallway yet again, were teleported yet again, and had to turn around to reach the door they had been approaching yet again. Koromaru ran up to the door and started barking at it.

“That’s a good sign, right?” Ren asked Ken. Koromaru was his dog, so he should have had the answer, right?

“I… think it is. One way to find out.” This time, the door opened without a fuss.

The golden-eyed princess was in the room, and when she saw them, her face fell in disappointment. “Oh. It’s you again.”

“What are you?” Ken asked, leaning against his ski pole like it was supposed to be threatening. “Where’s Amagi-san?”

The princess burst out laughing, loudly. It lasted for a few minutes, but eventually she managed to calm down enough to look the humans in the eye. “Don’t you see? I am Amagi Yukiko. And Amagi Yukiko is me.”

Ren could feel Arsene shifting at those words, while Ken paused and mouthed something silently. Ren wondered if it was the same phrase twisting about in his head.

_ ‘I am thou, and thou art I.’ _

“...Well, no matter,” The princess continued. “I suppose I’ll have to have one of my knights escort you ruffians and your beasts away from here.” With that, she snapped her fingers, and was gone, leaving a large, dark horse and rider in her place. Which was preparing to attack.

On the bright side, maybe they could stop for lunch once this was over.

* * *

  
  


Knight-type Shadows weren’t particularly common, and Ken had never personally had to face one in battle before. While he’d heard about them, it wasn’t enough to prepare him for how uncomfortably familiar this Shadow’s form was.

With its shape and color scheme, the opponent that Shadow Yukiko had summoned looked as if someone had taken Castor, and removed everything that made him part of Shinjiro.

Or maybe Castor looked like someone- in this case, probably Shinjiro- took one of these Shadows, and added parts to make him a mirror for Polydeuces. Whichever it was, it could probably be taken as evidence for Aigis and Misuru’s theory that the only thing separating a Shadow from a Persona was therapy. As if the words of the Shadow princess wouldn’t be enough for that.

Either way, Ken found the whole thing really unnerving, particularly when the Shadow raised its weapon and charged at him.

He could hear Koromaru howling, and the magic of Sukukaja taking effect, but he still barely managed to scramble out of the way, clinging to reality mostly through the metal of the ski pole biting into his hands and the fact that, if he let himself get lost in the past, it probably wouldn’t help him to survive, let alone to assist in the retrieval of Amagi Yukiko.

Also the fact that he had his glasses. If he’d seen that shape coming at him out of the fog… it wouldn’t have ended well.

“Kala-Nemi!” Hamaon probably wouldn’t work here. This Shadow felt like a floor guardian, and Hamaon never worked on those. Kougaon, maybe, but anything above a first-level spell honestly felt like overkill.

...Really, his very existence in this castle was probably overkill, but it was that or let Ren go in alone, and he definitely wasn’t about to do something like that.

He decided to go with Psi. It didn’t seem to have that much effect, but it still did something, and sometimes the best way to exorcise bad memories was to take the thing that brought them up, and slowly rip it to pieces with his mind.

...Maybe he needed to talk to Shinjiro later. And get therapy. And a lot of things, really, but those were two big ones, aside from the fact that he didn’t think there were any therapists that would believe him in the entire prefecture.

Ren and Koromaru came to the independent conclusions that the best way to handle this type of Shadow was to light it on fire. It worked. A glasslike key fell to the ground.

“Kenny? Are you okay?” Teddie asked, squeaking his way up to him. “You don’t look so hot…”

“That’s because he doesn’t have a fire Persona,” Ren quipped, and that was actually sort of funny. It sounded like a joke Minato or Aigis would make. “...But really, are you- is there anything I can do to help?”

“...I want to go home.” Not back to Inaba, but to Iwatodai, where he could actually talk to people about his problems and they’d be able to reassure him, because potential anger issues aside, how could he be a bad person when he spent four months sneaking into the hospital with Revival Beads in his pockets? “But I… don’t think that’s really an option right now. We have to help Amagi-san.”

“We could stop for lunch,” Ren offered, and Koromaru sat down next to Ken, looking up with big red eyes like he just wanted a hug and didn’t realize just how much Ken needed one, too.

“...Lunch would be nice.” Even if it was all snacks bought from the shopping district, food tended to help, so long as he could keep Koromaru from stealing it. It just brought up one question. “Um… Teddie, do you want anything for lunch?”

“What’s lunch?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I wasn't really intending for that to happen, but it just did. Hug your dog, Ken.


	12. In Which There Is A Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They reach the top of the castle. There are two of Amagi Yukiko there. This goes about as well as you would expect.

Practically speaking, feeding a Shadow, even a friendly one, was one of those things Mitsuru, Aigis, or Minato would probably call a waste of resources. Shadows didn’t require the same sustenance as regular beings, and while it wasn’t impossible they could gain the same benefits from food as Persona Users, healing supplies would be best conserved for the combat members of the group.

Of course, Kotone, on the other hand, would have told them to go for it, and one out of four was good enough for Ken. The fact that, while Teddie was eating, he couldn’t be asking questions was just an added benefit.

Ren didn’t ask, either, though whether it was because of the food, or because he could tell it was a delicate topic was something best left unasked. How much Koromaru understood was obvious- he laid down at Ken’s side, let himself be hugged, and didn’t try to steal from his lunch once.

“What do you think?” Ken asked Teddie, who had had to have it explained to him that he wasn’t supposed to stick the whole steak skewer into his mouth at once. “Do you like it?”

He received an enthusiastic nod in return- but then, everything Teddie did was enthusiastic. “It’s really good! Do you really get this every day in your world?”

“I mean, we’d sort of starve without it… If you’re talking about food in general. We don’t eat exactly the same thing every day.” And, of course, there was the fact that today they were only eating things that could have been picked up on a snack run, but he didn’t think it was quite time to introduce the bear to the concept of nutrition menus yet. “It’s not healthy.”

“Not that there’s a lot of different places to get food in town,” Ren noted. “There’s Junes, Shiroku-san’s place, Souzai Daigaku, Marukyu, and Aiya’s. There aren’t even any fast food places.”

“Cities like Iwatodai have lots of places for food, though,” He added. “My senpai and I could spend a week eating out for every meal, and never go to the same place twice.” They’d done so, once, on a dare from one of Minato’s friends. It had actually been pretty fun.

“Your… senpai?” Right, he’d never really mentioned them to Ren, even in the context of there being other Persona Users. And while this wasn’t quite the time for that discussion…

“The people who took care of me before I moved in with my uncle. It was only for a year and a half, but we were all still really close. I still talk to them a lot.” Once he was in range for cell service again, he’d probably be seeing a full day’s worth of worried texts. Still, that was a problem for future Ken. “I actually wouldn’t be surprised if they ended up coming down to Inaba for a visit at some point. You may end up meeting them.”

Ren probably assumed Ken was just talking about him, but he meant Teddie, too. He was sure a number of SEES would be interested in meeting this cheery, helpful Shadow.

But, again, that was something for future Ken to think about.

* * *

  
  


Things were more or less okay again by the time they reached the eighth floor. It wasn’t a very large floor- when they arrived, there was just one big door. Teddie walked up to it with squeaky footsteps, sniffing loudly. “Hm… I see…”

“Is Amagi-san behind the door?” Ren asked, readjusting his grip on his wrenches.

He received a nod in return. “Yes! Two of her!” Well, at least that meant the day was finally over… Ken just wanted to go to bed and sleep for a week.

Sadly, he had school, and friends who would worry if he suddenly stopped answering their calls, but he could probably manage not dealing with Shadows for a while, and maybe that would be enough.

“I guess that means we’re almost done,” He remarked. “Just in case, though… Ren-san? Are you ready for this?”

“As I’ll ever be.” Probably the most honest answer he could have expected to get.

The two girls that sat inside the throne room were almost identical, the only real differences between them being the eyes and the outfits. The Amagi Yukiko from their world had a kimono, while the princess that had been encountered earlier wore a dress frillier than Artemisia’s.

Both girls looked up when the doors opened and two children walked in, along with a dog and a bear. “Amagi-san?” Ren called. “That’s actually you this time, right?”

“She doesn’t feel like a Shadow…” Ken ventured. Koromaru ran up to the girl in the kimono, nudging at her.

“Oh? What a cute doggy.”

“Cute nuisance, more like…” The Shadow grumbled. “Why are you all still here? I want my prince!”

“My… prince…?” Yukiko blinked, still petting Koromaru. “What do you mean?”

“I’m not strong enough to do things on my own! But if I sit on my ass and wait all day, maybe a prince will come, and take me away from here! Chie could be a strong prince… but as it is, she’s just not good enough! She can’t save me. No one can. The only ones fool enough to try are children and wretched beasts!”

Ren turned to Ken. “Do you know what she’s talking about?”

“I don’t even know her.” She seemed upset, whatever it was.

The Yukiko on the floor gripped the fabric of her kimono between her fingers, looking up at the princess helplessly. “Why- why do you look like me? Why are you saying this? Who are you, anyway?”

“My name is Amagi Yukiko. And I’m saying this, because it’s what I really think. Isn’t that right… me?”

“No! Stop saying that! You’re not me!” Instantly, Kala-Nemi’s powers rose as close to the surface as they could be without Ken calling for them, the lightning within him coiled up to strike.

The Shadow started to laugh. And then, the world was overcome by feathers and fire.

* * *

  
  


To say that Amagi Yukiko was having a bad day would be a massive understatement. She had no idea how she’d gotten there, or what was currently happening, but now there was a giant caged red bird with her face laughing and throwing fireballs, and she was only safe from them because the dog that had run to her side was, apparently, fireproof.

Another creature approached her, with squeaky footsteps. “Come on, miss, you need to get away from that thing.”

“But… those kids…”

“Kenny and Renren are special, especially Renren! But you could get beary badly hurt if you stayed here!”

Yukiko tried to stand up, swayed, and collapsed to the ground again. “I’m sorry… I don’t think I can right now.”

“That’s all right! Koro-chan and I will protect you.”

“Arf!”

* * *

  
  


The first thing that the bird Shadow did was bathe the floor of the throne room in flames. Ren was less than pleased with this, as while he could technically use Ukobach if he needed to, something told him that hurling fire right back at the flame-throwing Shadow probably wouldn’t work out all too well. He darted around the flames, trying to pretend that the heat didn’t bother him, but that would be a lot easier if he weren’t carrying things made of heat-conducting metal.

The ice cubes he carried helped, a little, but just brushing against them made his fingers sting.

He threw one anyway. The birdcage clattered to the floor.

“Ren-san, here’s our chance!” Ken called, and Ren somehow instinctively knew what he meant. He nodded, and fumbled with his wrenches, and ran through the flame with the sole purpose of attacking a bird.

Getting through the flames was the easy part. Doing noticeable damage using wrenches against a giant bird was a bit more difficult. When the bird picked herself up, she flung out her wings, and both Ren and Ken were knocked back.

Being thrown across the hot stones was painful, but then Ken cast Dia on him, and suddenly he was healed. Actually, it almost felt like there was a bit too much magic thrown in there…

“Should we do that again?” He called back.

“How many ice cubes do you have?” He was going to take that as a yes.

* * *

  
  


The bird called for a prince Shadow with a wave of her wings. While Ken tried not to use too much power at a time and overwhelm Ren, having anything that could cast healing spells on their opponent around was a bad idea. Kougaon it was.

The prince was vaporized. “My prince…!” Shadow Yukiko sounded honestly distraught. “Come back!” She waved her wings again. The prince did not appear.

“Why…? Why won’t he come back?” Her eyes latched on Ken, and he didn’t back down. The ski pole in his hands was not responding well to the heat, and he probably didn’t want to bring it back to Junes, but even if he got a few burns, it was nothing a good Diarama couldn’t solve. Maybe even Dia. “You.”

A birdcage fell towards him, and he leaped out of the way, thanks more to Koromaru’s constant efforts with Sukukaja than anything else. More fire was falling his way, but… he could honestly say that he’d had a lot worse, and not even needed major healing afterwards.

On the other hand, he could probably have made better life choices than becoming the sole target of a fairly-powerful Shadow’s ire, but it wasn’t as if the choices he made before had ever been good ones.

He’d just… focus on not getting hit and hoping Ren didn’t run out of ice cubes or magic to cast Bufu with. Either would work, he just needed one of them.

* * *

  
  


Eventually, the time came that the bird collapsed, and reverted back to the form that imitated Amagi Yukiko. She looked at the imitation of herself, with the pink dress and the golden eyes, blinking at her with an unreadable expression. “You’re…”

“That Shadow came from you, miss,” Teddie told her. “If you deny it, it’ll go bearzerk again.”

“From… me?”

“I thought it was something like that,” Ken stated, quietly, wondering how he could possibly tell Mitsuru that he had confirmation for her theory without getting in trouble for deciding to investigate a murder without backup. “It… this actually feels… kind of familiar.”

“But… what she said…”

“I don’t think she meant to take things as… as far as she did,” Ren added. “She might have been… trying to get your attention. To say that… that you can do things by yourself, if you’re just brave enough.”

“You can ask us for help, though. Just... not all the time. We don’t really make the best decisions.”

“I-I’ve never… tried doing anything on my own before,” She admitted, pushing herself off of the ground. “Mom, Dad, Chie… even the staff at the inn. They’ve always helped me with everything. But… I’ve never done anything for myself. I don’t even know where to start.” Ken privately thought that she at least couldn’t end up being the least well-adjusted person he ever met, but then, there was a lot of competition for that.

The Shadow stared at Yukiko. She continued, meeting her gaze.

“I-I want to learn, though. I want to know what I can do. I need to find out what I want for myself. You… you’ll help me with that, right? Me?”

A nod, a flash of blue light, and suddenly there were four Persona Users in the room.

...If Ken ever told the others about this, he wondered how long it’d take them to believe him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the more difficult parts of this story is probably going to be the integration of Yukiko to the team, but it'll be interesting to see what happens when she's a Persona User and Chie isn't. Of the P4 party members, she and Teddie are probably going to have the most differences in their character arcs. (Besides, well, Chie. And Yosuke, who isn't really having the best time of it, but I'm sure he'll be fine. He always is.)


	13. In Which Things Wind Down A Bit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko is saved, and so there's a bit less to worry about. Right?

Yukiko didn’t think she’d ever been so glad to see the inside of Junes.

“Do you think you’ll be all right getting home from here?” Ken, the boy with brown hair, asked. “...Actually, depending how long you were in there, you might need to talk to some people first.” As if on cue, a pair of phones started buzzing repeatedly. “...And me, too, come to that.”

Yukiko checked her phone. There were a large number of increasingly worried messages from Chie, who was apparently the first person her parents went to when they started looking for her.

_ Satonaka Chie: Hey, Yukiko? Could you tell me where you are? Your parents are worried about you. _

_ Satonaka Chie: You’re okay, right? It’s been twelve hours, and you haven’t texted me back. What happened? _

_ Satonaka Chie: Yukiko, I’m warning you, if you’re not okay I’m going to raise you from the dead just so I can kill you myself! Where are you!? _

“I should be fine,” She said, and it was mostly true, aside from how she’d need to think of something to tell people that wouldn’t involve castles, or giant birds, or the fact that she could now set things on fire whenever she wanted, if that ever seemed like a good idea. “I’m just… really, really tired.”

The black-haired boy, Ren, nodded. “If that’s the case, you should go home and rest. The more you rest, the sooner you’ll feel better, right?”

“Oh, but before you go!” Ken had his phone out as well. “We should exchange numbers, so we’ll be able to meet up again. This sort of thing can be really dangerous, so it’s important to be able to talk to each other.” He sounded like he knew what he was doing, so Yukiko thought it couldn’t hurt too much to go along with it.

“That… I guess that would be fine. What about Amamiya-kun?”

“I… don’t have a phone,” Ren stated. “I’ve never… needed one, before. I didn’t really have any- any friends. It’s different, now.”

“Getting a Persona tends to change things,” Ken agreed. “I didn’t think I’d ever meet someone with one who was my age, either. But it’d be more fun if these sorts of things wouldn’t happen.”

It was hard to disagree with that. If Konohana Sakuya hadn’t been simmering within herself, Yukiko would have been glad to go home and forget today had even happened.

As it was, it still seemed like a not terrible option.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: Sorry I couldn’t talk to you earlier. It’s been a long day. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: In what regard? _

Ken paused. He didn’t want to just not tell the others about this, at least not indefinitely, but it still didn’t seem quite like the right time for that.

Among other things, he was not ready to deal with Akihiko showing up and deciding that inside a TV sounded like a great place for training. He probably didn’t have to worry about it all that much, but it was still best to be safe.

_ Amada Ken: I spent a lot of time with my friend Ren. It turns out that he’s a lot like me. We enjoy doing a lot of the same things. _

It just happened that those things included fighting Shadows, which he was still not ready to go into in any capacity. Among other things, he’d have to wait and see what Yukiko wanted. If she didn’t want to have to deal with other Persona Users, he wasn’t about to try and force her.

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: I’m glad that you finally have a friend your own age. Before you say anything, Aigis doesn’t count. _

_ Amada Ken: Well, yes, that’s why she has a high school diploma. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...Letting you spend time with Arisato was a mistake. _

He’d picked that up from Shinjiro, actually, and they both knew it, but they also knew she wasn’t willing to say that, even as part of a joke.

But then, while the only thing separating a Shadow from a Persona was, apparently, actually therapy, nothing ever said just how much therapy was required. Taking them as an example, the answer was probably less than would strictly be ideal.

Once Yukiko was feeling better, if she ended up being all right with it, he’d probably tell her that her and Aigis’ theory was apparently correct. If he was lucky, he wouldn’t even have to deal with the entirety of SEES suddenly showing up on his doorstep.

Which was good, because he wasn’t sure how he’d explain that to anybody who asked. Maybe he’d just awkwardly change the subject and hope no one ever brought it up again.

It’d probably work at least as well as any other plans he’d made, at least.

* * *

  
  


Ken was drawn into wakefulness by a knock on his door. “Are you all right?” Nanako asked, standing in the doorway.

“I’m fine,” He yawned, and it was a bit more true, now that he’d gotten a few hours of rest. It wasn’t quite sunset yet, either, so he could easily say he’d recovered a lot faster than he usually did.

...Of course, his last major excursion against Shadows had been well over a year ago, covered a much greater distance, and had a lot of more powerful enemies, so that may have been a part of it. “I just… tired myself out exploring with Ren-san earlier.” If exploring meant raiding a giant, Shadow-filled castle to try and stop someone from dying.

Nanako nodded, though it was hard to tell if she was really convinced. “Dad called. He and Adachi-san are going to be picking up dinner, so he wants to know what you’d like.”

He shrugged. “Anything that’s… not steak, really. I may have eaten a few too many steak skewers earlier…” Koromaru whined in agreement, as if he’d be getting any scraps from the table. He’d already had enough human food for the day. “...Adachi-san?”

“He’s Dad’s partner at work. I like him. He’s really funny.” Well. He supposed he’d end up meeting more people eventually. “And if he’s coming over, that means Dad’s definitely going to be home tonight.” She sounded really happy about that.

“Really? That’s nice.” He knew he was supposed to sound interested, but… well, she didn’t seem to notice how dispassionate he was.

“It is! Maybe I can- can even get him to look over my homework.”

Ken sat up. “Are you having a problem with it?”

“Not really, but…”

“I could check it over, if you like,” He offered. If only because he’d completed all his homework for the weekend yesterday just in case he was kept in the television for too long. “I… Think my grades are all right, despite Junpei-san’s best efforts.” He’d only made the mistake of asking Junpei for homework help once. It had been clear from the start that it wasn’t really his best decision.

Nanako beamed. Ken supposed he’d be playing tutor for a little while.

...At least it meant he wouldn’t have to move all that much.

* * *

  
  


“So, do you want to tell me where you were earlier today?” Chie asked. Yukiko had already had this conversation once today, with her parents, but she supposed she should have seen it coming. “I heard you went missing, and I…”

“...Sorry. I just… needed some time for myself, that’s all. There was a lot I needed to think about.” Konohana Sakuya simmered at the lie, even if the alternative was to admit she’d been stuck in a foggy castle inside of a TV, and had her life saved by a pair of preteens with superpowers. “I wasn’t anywhere in particular, I just… had my phone turned off.”

“Everyone was really worried. Also, the police might have been suspecting you killed the announcer and Konishi-senpai. ...You didn’t, right?”

“Of course not!” She hadn’t even known Saki all that well. “Why would I do that?”

Chie shrugged. “I dunno. It was stupid. I told the guy he could take those theories, and shove the right up his-”

“Ch-Chie!” Yukiko burst into laughter. Of course she would say something like that.

It was good to be home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we can move on to mostly Social Link stuff for a little while, because Ren and Ken have to interact with people besides each other at some point, right?


	14. In Which Things Have Returned To Normal

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Or as normal as it ever gets for them. This may be different than what it is for most people.

The next morning, Ren met with Ken on the way to school. “Yesterday was… really something, wasn’t it?” Ken mused, looking up at the sky. “I bet you’re still tired.”

He wasn’t wrong. Exhaustion clung to Ren’s bones, in a way that he wasn’t sure anything in town can fix. “We did save Amagi-san, though.” So all the healed injuries, all of the time spent, all of the tiredness couldn’t have been wasted, right.

“We did.” The agreement was perhaps more relieving than it should have been. “And it’s thanks to you. I wouldn’t have ever thought to tune into the Midnight Channel every night. If you hadn’t made the connection…”

“If you had, you wouldn’t have needed me.” It was easy, now that he was looking, to see the magic that Ken carried within him. “You’re really strong.”

“Yeah, but… I wouldn’t want to do these things on my own. Even just me and Koromaru… it’s nice to have a Wild Card around. Besides… While getting one isn’t always fun, I’m glad that there’s finally another Persona User my age. I was starting to think I’d never meet one!” He laughed it off, but he seemed serious about this.

“I-I’m glad, too,” Ren admitted. “I don’t think I’d want to do this, if I was on my own.” Assuming he’d ever discover the power to enter the TV, without Ken there to trip into one in front of him.

“I don’t know if anyone would. But… we’re not alone. I keep thinking that’s going to happen, but… it never does. Thank you… for agreeing to work with me, Ren-san.”

The Justice Arcana fluttered at the back of Ren’s mind. For now, he ignored it. “I mean, it’s not like I had anything else to do… Come on, Ken-senpai! We’re going to be late!”

And suddenly, for the moment, Ren’s world was back to normal. He knew there was no real chance it would stay that way, but for now, he’d enjoy it.

If things out here ended up making too little sense, he’d just make another attempt at getting straight answers out of the Velvet Room. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t work, but that was no reason not to try.

* * *

  
  


“I’m worried about Amada.” Minato wasn’t sure why Mitsuru was bringing this up. They were all worried about Ken, he was twelve and going someplace none of them but Kotone had ever been before. After taking care of him for as long as they had, concern was normal.

“It’s been a week,” He stated, wondering why he had to be the one to point this out. “If there was a problem, he’d tell us, right?”

“I mean, he randomly asked me for a spear the other day,” Kotone remarked. “Not that he told me what he wanted to use it for. And then there’s the news coming out of Inaba… I’m not the only one who watches that, right? He can take care of himself, but…”

Minato’s phone buzzed.

_ Amada Ken: Look, if Inaba ends up being on fire at some point in the next week, it’s not my fault. _

“...Actually, I can see why you’re worried.” Why would he suddenly text him about that? They all knew that Koromaru wouldn’t agree to just set the town on fire without a reason, and Ken couldn’t use fire magic on his own. “Should I respond to this, or just leave it be?”

Nobody answered him. He sighed and typed out a response.

_ Arisato Minato: Is Inaba going to be set on fire at some point in the next week? _

_ Amada Ken: I hope not, but there’s no reason to dismiss the possibility. _

This was not particularly reassuring.

* * *

  
  


Marie wanted to see outside of the Velvet Room. Ren didn’t see any reason not to show her around, he’d already visited the train car today and gotten exactly no answers that didn’t just confuse him further, and there probably wasn’t anything wrong with letting her see the nearby neighborhood.

They stopped by the bookstore, first, and Ren quickly lost Marie’s attention to the books on the shelves. Curious, he started poking through the back, himself. Maybe there was something that could help him with the ‘Social Links’ Igor had mentioned.

“Oh, this book looks good. So does this one.” ...Assuming, of course, that he could keep Marie from causing a scene.

“You… do realize you’ll need money if you want to get books, right?” He checked. He had to pay for Personas, there was no way she didn’t understand the value of currency, right?

“That… right.” Marie sighed and placed the book of poetry back on the shelf. “...I’ll come back later.” Was he going to have to worry about wandering across her in town at some point?

They left the shop a few minutes later, having discovered no books that Ren found particularly interesting. When they left the building, Ren could hear a dog barking, heralding the approach of Ken and Koromaru.

“Ren-san,” Ken greeted him. “I was just taking Koromaru for a walk. What are you doing?”

“This is Marie-san. She comes from… well, from behind that door I told you about.”

“Not really...” Marie muttered. “I’m not from there. I just live there.”

“...Oh. You mean like…?” He trailed off, shivering. Ren wasn’t sure what that was about. “...Never mind. She doesn’t have the same uniform.”

Marie blinked. “...I think I know what you mean. No, I’m not like them. I don’t… think I have their kind of powers.” Ren was still totally lost, and starting to get the feeling that he didn’t actually want to know.

Ken gave a visible sigh of relief. “Well, I’d better get going. I’m trying to see if we can get as far as the riverbank, today. Come on, Koromaru!” He ran off, faster than Ren would have expected.

Marie watched him go. “He’s your friend, isn’t he?” She asked. Ren nodded. “...I see. Come on, I want to go someplace farther than here. Take me someplace that looks nice.”

Somewhere that looked nice? In that case, he could either follow Ken to the Samegawa, or take her to the big hill overlooking the town. He hadn’t been either of those places in a while…

Ren decided to take Marie to the hill.

* * *

  
  


It sort of felt like everything that had happened since Ken arrived in Inaba had been some strange dream. He’d gone a year without any reason to use his Persona, was suddenly faced with a reason again, and dealt with the most pressing matter in under a week.

And now, for the past few days, the world had been back to what most people would expect from it. Less fog and monsters, more wandering the town in desperate search of something to do that would not involve the theft of another breakable pointy object.

So far, the news had yet to display any worries about Junes missing a ski pole. On one hand, that meant he was unlikely to get into any trouble over it. On the other hand, it could have been amusing.

Today, for the first time since he’d come to town, Tatsuhime Shrine was bereft of the normal swarm of elementary school students, who tended to take up all of the space while hunting for bugs. It seemed… strange, to see it so empty, even if Ken had barely seen it in the first place.

Koromaru seemed happy enough to sniff around the area, particularly with the lack of distractions that would ensue if Ken were to take a dog into a small crowd of grade schoolers. Sometimes he paused to bark at insects.

“It’s a lot different from the shrine back in Iwatodai, isn’t it?”

“Arf!” He’d take that as an agreement. Not that it was particularly hard to tell at the moment. There were plenty of obvious differences between the two places.

Still, both of them were peaceful enough to sit and rest for a while, so for now, that was what he was going to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here I have to start slowing down, because I actually have to work through character arcs.
> 
> Ken's not as subtle as he thinks he is. If SEES had time to randomly visit, they probably would, just to make sure he's not doing anything to take advantage of how flammable Inaba is.


	15. In Which Conversations Are Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Until Yukiko contacts them again, Ken and Ren have no choice but to live somewhat normal lives. So they do.
> 
> Of course, normal, in this case, is very highly subjective.

While Ken could safely say he was friends with Ren- it would have been hard not to be friends with probably the only other Persona User that was his age- dealing with the rest of the kids at his school wasn’t so easy.

They’d been interested in him at first, in the sense that they wanted to know what growing up in a city was like, but he hadn’t been able to really answer their questions. He’d be describing his entire life, minus perhaps the parts that tended to get people to look at him strangely.

And then there was Nakajima Shu. They shared a class, and had desks that were close to each other. Shu had been pretending that Ken didn’t exist from the start.

...Well, most of the time. Sometimes, there were faint glares in the hallways.

“Does Nakajima-senpai not like you or something?” Ren asked.

“I’m… not sure,” He admitted. “He’s never said anything to me. He’s just… like that. I don’t know why. I’ve never done anything to him.” And that was the sort of feeling that normally brought upon that level of frost from someone who wasn’t Mitsuru.

“...It might just be something to do with him. There’s… I don’t think I’ve ever seen Nakajima-senpai talking with friends. Sort of like me, but… at least I was trying.” Ren shrugged. “I guess it doesn’t matter. ...Have you heard from Amagi-san, yet?”

Ken shook his head. “I’ve been thinking of sending her a Goho-M, or something, in case whoever was after her tries again, but I’m not sure when would be a good time. I… think it’ll be fine, though. If something happens, she can protect herself now, at least until she can find her way back to Teddie.”

Ren blinked, and adjusted his glasses. “...I wonder what he’s doing right now. Probably the same kind of thing we are.”

Right. Just… sitting around, and waiting for something to happen, because they didn’t have any other idea of what to do next. It wasn’t the first time this sort of thing had happened to Ken, but it was still annoying, not having any idea of what was going to happen.

And speaking of that. “...I know it’s not going to rain through the night, today, but I’m still glad we got Amagi-san out of there already. I know things are different where Shadows are, but I’m not sure she would have survived for this long.” Of course, that left the question of what he was supposed to do while the rain came down outside, but at least that was the question he was asking at the moment, and not where to acquire something sufficiently capable of stabbing.

Really, things could have been a lot worse.

* * *

  
  


“Kenny! You’re back!” Teddie ran up to greet Ken, as he slid on his glasses. There. Things were much clearer, now. “...Where’s Renren?”

“I… think he’s started stalking one of my classmates.” Still, as long as Shu didn’t come to him and start complaining, it really wasn’t his problem. “It should be fine, though. I don’t feel like fighting anything today.” If any Shadows wandered across them, he’d be more than able to fight back by himself, or maybe just leap through the exit televisions.

“Really? Then why are you here?”

“I thought I’d come see you.” There weren’t a lot of other things he could have been doing, at the moment. “I mean… you must be bored. Just sitting around here.” Besides, he was interested. How could a Shadow like Teddie exist?

“It is… really bearren,” Teddie admitted, sitting back down. “And it’s beary dangerous out there… Mostly, I just stay here where it’s safe.” That sounded boring. And lonely.

“Would you like something else to do?” Ken offered. “I’ve been thinking of getting some coloring books or something for my cousin. Maybe you’d like some, too?” He was already at Junes, after all, there wasn’t much reason not to get any shopping done. Possibly involving looking for a refrigerator that hadn’t gone a horrifically long time without cleaning, but he didn’t think he had that much money. At least, not without spending everything Mitsuru had given him, and he’d probably need some of that for emergencies.

“...Coloring books?” Right, he wouldn’t have heard of those.

“They’re books filled with pictures without any color, and you have to fill them in,” Ken explained. “I’d have to get you something to color with, too, but… it’d probably be better than just… sitting here all the time.”

“...What’s a book?” ...Okay, so he should probably have expected this question, too.

* * *

  
  


After a few days of trying, Ren was forced to admit that Shu wasn’t going to pay attention to him unless something drastic happened. Maybe he’d make another go of it later, but for now, he had other things worth doing.

Like talking to Lavenza. “My siblings were just telling me of how they would test their Guests’ capabilities by asking them to perform certain requests.” Her voice was calm, as she flipped through the Compendium that would probably be a large drain on Ren’s funds. “If you would be amenable, I’d like to ask the same as you- but be warned, they will likely be much more difficult than humoring Marie’s wanderlust.”

Marie looked mildly insulted by this, but didn’t speak up. Presumably, this was something that could be left between the two of them.

“...That sounds fine,” He replied, figuring that, whatever she wanted to ask of him, it couldn’t be too difficult. At the very least, it would be something to do in a town where the only thing that really seemed to happen was murder. “What do you want me to do?”

“I’m… not sure. I didn’t actually believe I would get this far. But if you come back in a week, I should be able to write lists and lists of things for you to do.” She hadn’t even been prepared. He didn’t know why he was surprised by this. It wasn’t like anyone else involved in this Persona mess had been remotely prepared for anything.

Igor cast a quick glance Lavenza’s way. “If you must ask your siblings for help, please do not involve Elizabeth.”

“I will make no promises.” Ren was mildly terrified now. He wondered if that was their intention or not.

Maybe he’d just leave and hope she’d forget about it. Except he still needed to use the Velvet Room if he wanted to acquire any particularly powerful Personas.

...He was in trouble.

* * *

  
  


“Hello again, Kanji-san!” It would start raining again soon, according to the weather report, so Ken wanted to take Koromaru on a nice, long walk ahead of time. That their route went through the shopping district had a lot to do with how Ken didn’t know a lot of places in town.

He’d considered asking Ren, at one point, but the last time he’d asked Ren to play tour guide, he’d tripped and fallen into a TV. It wasn’t his fault, but it was still something he’d rather avoid having come up again.

“Oh, hey. Amada, right? This little guy yours?”

“That’s right. His name is Koromaru. Say hi, Koromaru.”

“Arf!” Koromaru wagged his tail. Kanji didn’t look away from him.

“I was thinking of showing Koromaru around town,” Ken continued, not sure what else to do at the moment. “But I… haven’t really seen all that much, myself. It’s just home, school, the shopping district, and Junes.” Admittedly, that was roughly as much as he’d need to know if he planned on spending every spare moment inside the TV world, but it’d be better to see more places around town.

Kanji managed to tear his gaze away from Koromaru to glance down the street. “Well, if you go all the way to the end of the street that way and turn left, you’ll get to the floodplain eventually. Y’know, if you like rivers.”

Ken had never been to a river before. He’d seen the ocean, of course, that was what happened when someone lived in the Port Island area, but rivers were something new to him. “Thanks, Kanji-san. I think I’ll go check it out. Come on, Koromaru!”

“Arf!”

As soon as they were out of Kanji’s earshot, Ken slowed down to talk to his dog. “He reminds you of Akihiko-san and Shinjiro-san, right? I’m not the only one?”

“Arf!” He really, really wished Aigis were there to translate at the moment.

...Of course, if Aigis had been there to translate, then Koromaru could potentially tell her that Ken was currently investigating a murder case, sort of. At which point the information would make its way back to everyone else.

So, really, her not being there was for the better. Maybe. Or maybe it’d be better to be able to talk to the others and ask for help.

...Yukiko needed to get in contact soon. Just so he could figure out whether or not talking to everyone was currently an option.

Of course, that might still end in him having to talk to everyone about how he’d gotten into something he probably shouldn’t have, but that just might have been a sacrifice he was willing to make.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I found a character who could be fun later! It'll probably be a while before I can actually do anything with him, but if I do, I may as well have it established that he's here.
> 
> In this household, we do not leave Teddie unoccupied in the TV for weeks at a time. Give him something to do besides make glasses and have an existential crisis.


	16. In Which Yukiko Receives A Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko decides to contact the kids who saved her. Having no lack of free time, they immediately decide to come visit.

_ Amagi Yukiko: Hello. This is… Amada Ken, correct? _

_ Amada Ken: That’s right. It’s good to finally hear from you, Amagi-san. We were getting worried you wouldn’t want anything to do with us. Are you feeling better now? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Yes. I’m feeling much better, thank you. I just don’t really understand… _

Well, any of it, really. She hoped this was enough for him to understand the way she was feeling though, since she wasn’t sure how to put any of it into text. It just didn’t seem like there were the words for this type of thing.

Yukiko’s feelings must have gotten through, however, because she received a response just a little bit later.

_ Amada Ken: The whole Persona thing? Yeah, it can take some getting used to. If you’d like, Ren-san and I could go talk to you about it? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: That would be nice. My parents still aren’t sure I should be leaving the inn, but you could come visit? If you don’t mind a bus ride through the rain, that is. _

_ Amada Ken: Well, I’ll have to see if Ren-san is free today, but there shouldn’t be much to keep us away for very long. If he’s not available today, I’ll make sure and tell you when he is. _

From the messages she was getting, it was sort of hard to believe that Yukiko’s rescuer was as young as he was. She would have expected someone who was at least her age, especially as her Shadow couldn’t have been the only dangerous thing in the castle.

And yet, she’d been saved by a couple of middle school students, a dog, and a cute little bear thing that appeared to be on the same wavelength as the children.

Still… she was glad they’d come to save her. Now, if only she could figure out how to explain a pair of preteens visiting her to her parents…

* * *

  
  


The rain splattered on the windows of the bus, and Ren and Ken sat next to each other for the ride to the Amagi Inn. “It really was nice of Amagi-san to invite us over like that,” Ren commented, looking out the window, and then turning away from it because he couldn’t see anything past the sheets of rain.

Ken nodded. “Do you think she’ll be able to tell us anything about…?”

“Maybe, but… if she knew anything, wouldn’t she start by going to the police?” It was only what made sense, right? They were the ones who were supposed to be looking into this.

Ken shifted uncomfortably. “That… even if she did remember something, they might not believe her. I- I mean, who would believe in things like a world inside of the TV?”

The two of them, for one, but they’d been able to experience it firsthand. “I guess you’re right, but… she could think of something else to say, couldn’t she?”

“...Maybe.” Ren could see that he wasn’t convinced. “But it’d still be better to… well, to hear the whole thing. There’s… not a lot of people who’d listen to her.”

That was right. For all they knew, it could have been just the two of them, and the person who’d thrown Yukiko through a television set to begin with. Ren could talk to Ken about these things and get answers, but Yukiko....

Well. He supposed that was why they were visiting her at the inn to begin with.

* * *

  
  


By the time Yukiko ushered the children in from the rain, they were already drenched. Ren’s normally frizzy hair was pressed flat to his head, and Ken was shivering.

It was supposed to keep raining for another two days. Ken was starting to wonder if it was normal for Inaba to end up being halfway underwater, or if this was just a really bad day to be outside for any length of time.

Still, he was offered a warm, fluffy towel, so he supposed it couldn’t be all that bad.

“I… Thank you again, for coming to save me.” This was the fourth or fifth time she’d thanked them for that. At this point, she appeared to be doing it more out of a lack of anything else to say.

“Don’t worry about it,” He replied. “I wasn’t about to let someone die when I had an idea of how to stop it. Though it… might have gone differently, without Ren-san.” Probably, he would have had to get Yukiko away from the battlefield while Koromaru took advantage of being fireproof to whittle down the bird with Eiha. Technically doable, but easily the least enjoyable way to go about that kind of thing, if any way could be called enjoyable.

“You’re a lot stronger than me, though, Ken-senpai,” Ren pointed out.

“That doesn’t make fighting Shadows easy.” Just… something he knew how to do, and that not a lot of other people did. Of course he was stronger. He’d had more experience. “If it looks like it is, it’s because I’ve been doing this for a long time.”

“You have?” Yukiko’s interest was visible on her face. “...I guess that explains how you knew what you were doing.” She didn’t outwardly express any surprise based on his age, which was honestly refreshing. Then again, SEES’ doubts had stopped at about the point they first saw him rip a tank apart with his mind, so maybe it was just impossible to ignore visible combat prowess.

Still, he wasn’t sure how she’d gotten the impression that anyone knew what they were doing. He’d been making guesses off of past experience and things he’d overheard from his friends that just so happened to be right.

Still, it was nice to feel appreciated, so he went along with it. “That’s right. I first summoned a Persona in late summer of the year before last. When I came to Inaba at the start of the month, though, it had been about a year since I’d seen any Shadows.” He’d remain somewhat vague about it, for now. Ren and Yukiko didn’t need to know about the Dark Hour. It was gone now.

Ren blinked. “What happened between then?”

“A lot of things.” Even if he excised the worst parts of it, it would still be too long a story to tell in a room of the Amagi Inn with the lights on and rain splattering against the windows. “Still… we didn’t exactly come here to talk about me. Amagi-san, do you remember anything about what happened before we found you?”

She shook her head. “...I’m sorry. The last thing I remember before the castle is going to answer the doorbell…”

Ren blinked. “You mean, whoever it was actually rang the bell? That’s pretty…” He trailed off, as though searching for a word to use, and deciding that any he did find were inadequate.

“There’s not a lot of people confident enough to do that,” Ken agreed. “It’d be a really easy way to get caught, if something went wrong.” Takaya had been bold like that, but Takaya had operated under the cover of the Dark Hour. And was also someone that he really didn’t want to talk about to people that he’d known for less than a month.

“They must have been really sure that they’d succeed.” Ren paused, and started fishing around in his pockets. “Hold on, I know I have a Goho-M packed somewhere… There!” He finally retrieved the object, wearing a look of great satisfaction. “If you end up in trouble again, you can use this to leave. We found a lot of them in the castle, but I… don’t know what to do with them now.”

“Keep them for if we need them later?” Ken suggested. “Traesto Gems do basically the same thing, and I know there’s a few left over from… fifth grade…” He really did need to think of a better explanation at some point. “I just… don’t have access to them.”

In hindsight, it would probably have been easier to ask for them than an Evoker, and he turned out not to even need an Evoker in the other world, but at least they’d found chests full of Goho-Ms to compensate.

“Really? Why not?”

“Well… I haven’t mentioned this before, but I wasn’t the only Persona User in Iwatodai. My senpai- the people I was living with before I moved here- also have Personas. And I…” He forced himself to breathe clearly. “Well, I have to ask the two of you something.”

“What is it?” Both Ren and Yukiko asked at once. Ken fidgeted, a little, not having quite expected he would make it this far. Among other things, he suspected this wasn’t the best time to mention that he knew Kirijo Mitsuru.

“You see, my senpai… I haven’t told them about all this yet. And I wanted to know if… if you would be all right with me telling them about your powers. I mean, I don’t know if I will or not yet, but also the last time I didn’t talk about something important with them, one of them ended up in a coma…” The other two blinked at him. “...What?”

“You… said something about a coma?” Yukiko ventured.

“I… hadn’t meant to say that part out loud,” He admitted. If that part of things ever came up in the future, he’d rather it be after he’d had the time to actually get to know these people. “It… wasn’t great. I don’t want to talk about it.”

Ren silently nodded. Yukiko bit her lip. “All right, then…” He couldn’t even blame them for being concerned. If their positions were reversed, he’d have the same reaction.

“I… think it’d be okay. If you told your friends about us.” Ren sounded unsure, which really didn’t help. “I mean, it’s… really your decision. You don’t even have to ask us about it.”

“I mean, despite how they have lives, that might not stop them from coming down here to visit. We’d have to be careful not to lose Akihiko-san or Junpei-san through a television, but… I’m not sure if it’d be better if I told them about that world, or if they stumbled across it on their own.”

“Given the… coma thing…” Yukiko sounded like she was still caught up on that. “...Maybe you should talk to them soon.”

“...I’ll think about it. Maybe later. I haven’t even asked Teddie what he wants yet.” Admittedly, it would probably be a good idea to warn the rest of SEES about the friendly Shadow living in the TV ahead of time, but there were just as few ways to bring up that subject as there were to mention the duo of new Persona Users. Most of which would probably end with Ken admitting to investigating a murder case with a very inexperienced team.

“...Teddie?”

“Do you remember the bear from the TV?” Ren asked. Yukiko nodded. “That’s Teddie. I’m… not actually entirely sure what he is, but… He’s been helping us.”

“...I see. Then I should probably meet him, too.” Ken and Ren both looked at Yukiko in confusion. “If there’s someone out there that… really wants me dead, then I want to know why. And the best way for me to do that is to catch them myself. ...That is, if you don’t mind me joining you.”

“I guess… you could if you wanted to,” Ren replied. “Ken-senpai?”

He nodded. “Of course! More of us is always better. When we stopped finding Shadows to fight, my old team had eleven people in it, counting Koromaru.” And Aigis, but this was also probably not the time to go into robotics. “...We probably shouldn’t take you to meet Teddie until after the fog comes and goes, though.” The less she was seen out in town, the less likely the killer was to realize she’d been saved, right?

“I think we could go in right after, though,” Ren pitched in. “I mean… it should only be in a few days, but I don’t have any plans… unless you’ll be busy, Amagi-san?”

“Well, my friend Chie might want to do something… but this seems more important. I can probably convince her to wait for a bit. After all, she’s been visiting nearly every day.”

It was nice to know that Ken wasn’t the only person who found Inaba so boring that he spent his time just hanging out with a select few people.

“So… we’ll meet at the Junes electronics department once it’s sunny again?”

No one voiced any disagreement.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's probably going to be a trend of Ken just randomly mentioning something about one team that makes members of the other stop and wonder about him. For very good reason.


	17. In Which Yukiko Meets Teddie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Also some other stuff happens before that. But Teddie meeting Yukiko is the important thing.

“Why are you following me around?” On the second day of rain, Ren finally managed to get Shu to acknowledge him. “You’re distracting me from my studying.”

“I’m looking for a book!” This was why he tended not to talk to people who weren’t Ken. It was as if, as soon as someone moved from one school to another, all of their friendships between grades weren’t worth anything anymore.

Not that Ren had ever had any form of friendship with Nakajima Shu, but he’d at least been civil, back when their paths would cross.

“And you can look somewhere else. I need as few distractions as possible.”

“...Have you considered studying at home?” It seemed like an obvious solution to him.

“That would mean taking the time to walk home, and all of the best books are here.” Which was why Ren was interested in looking through them. Whatever his problem was, Shu was not the only person who could need to use the library. “I can’t let Amada beat me.”

“...I don’t think you have to study all the time for that. Ken-senpai doesn’t.” Ren wasn’t entirely sure what Ken did when they weren’t working on Persona stuff together, but he assumed it involved a lot of dog-walking and conversations with someone in a far-off city. His cousin was probably involved in some way, as well.

Shu nodded. “And that’s his mistake. I can use this to keep my place at the top of the class.” He walked off, having evidently decided he’d had enough of Ren.

Despite that, the Tower Arcana flickered through the back of Ren’s mind.

He couldn’t decide whether that was a good sign or not.

* * *

  
  


As the rain pounded on the roof of the Dojima household, Ken lay sprawled out on his couch with his phone in hand, having a conversation he didn’t feel entirely prepared for.

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Do you know if your uncle has any plans for Golden Week? _

_ Amada Ken: He was saying he’d try to get some time off if he could, but he isn’t sure yet. My cousin wants to visit Junes, but she’s a bit addicted anyway. Why do you ask? _

He knew why he was asking, of course. It was honestly something he’d been hoping for since before his train had pulled into the station. But he still had to ask, because it was only polite.

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: We were thinking that some of us could go down and see how you’re settling in. But you probably don’t want all of us to descend on Inaba at once, so… Is there anyone you’d like to see in particular? _

Ken took a moment to think about it. If it had been anyone else to contact him, his answer probably wouldn’t have taken so much thought, but…

Making a decision, he tapped out his reply and hit send before he could second-guess himself.

_ Amada Ken: That depends. Out of all the rest of SEES, who would you say you trust the most? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Aki. Koto. Mitsuru, if we’re being generous. Why do you ask? _

_ Amada Ken: I’d like you to bring them with you to visit. Don’t bring anyone else, though- I wouldn’t trust Junpei-san not to wander off and get lost somewhere. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: That is nowhere near answering my question and we both know it. _

_ Amada Ken: You’ll understand later. Or maybe you won’t. I’m still not fully decided yet. _

There was no reply from Shinjiro. A bit later, Ken’s phone buzzed again with a message from a different person.

_ Sanada Akihiko: Shinji just threw his phone at the wall. How did you get that to happen? I’ve only managed it twice! _

_ Amada Ken: First, what makes you think I was involved in that? Second, why and how are you keeping track of that!? _

_ Sanada Akihiko: First of all, he told me he was talking to you. Second, it was memorable, and Kotone and Mitsuru are helping. _

_ Amada Ken: ...You’ll figure it out eventually. Also, stop picking on your brother. _

Akihiko didn’t respond, which Ken took to mean he was ignoring his advice and currently bugging Shinjiro. It seemed to be a trend with him.

He just had to hope that giving him an invitation to come to Inaba hadn’t been a terrible mistake.

* * *

  
  


A thick fog came and went, and nothing appeared on the Midnight Channel. Despite knowing that Yukiko had been safe almost from the beginning, Ken still found it relieving.

The next day, he met her and Ren at the Junes electronics department after school. “You’re not bringing Koromaru today?” Ren asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We’re not going to be fighting anything today,” Ken replied. “I can’t just sneak him into the building whenever I feel like it.” Just because it wasn’t something that would get him suspected of murder didn’t mean it wouldn’t get him kicked out of the store.

“I guess that’s true… do you at least have your glasses?” In reply he retrieved the frames from his pocket and slid them onto his face.

Yukiko glanced between them. “That’s right, you were both wearing them when you came to save me… Chosokabe even had those little goggles.”

Ken sighed. “His name is Koromaru.” Those names didn’t even sound anything alike!

Ren turned away from the conversation and clambered through the TV. The discussion stopped so that Ken and Yukiko could go through after him.

By this point, Ken was well adjusted to landing safely on the ground of the world inside of the television. Yukiko was a fair bit less graceful, but it was her first time entering of her own volition, so it made sense.

Teddie was fast to greet them. “You’re back! And you brought the girl from before, too!”

“That’s right,” Ren nodded. “Teddie, this is Amagi Yukiko. She’s… going to be coming along with us. Amagi-san, this is Teddie. He’s helping us explore this world. He’s… also the one who gave us our glasses.”

“I have some extra pairs, too! Look, Yuki-chan, you can choose between red, black, or yellow!”

“I think I like the look of these ones, actually.” Yukiko took a pair of glasses from Teddie. “It’s even got a nose guard!” Ken bit his lip so he wouldn’t burst out laughing. Ren simply didn’t look in her direction at all.

“O-oh, sorry. I messed up making that one. It doesn’t have the right lenses yet. I could fix them up for you, though!” His offer was made quickly, as he nervously beamed up at the high school student.

“All right, then.” She handed the gag glasses back. “...Could I have the red ones, too? They match with my outfit.” Teddie handed over the red pair of frames.

“Sure thing! I mean, it’s not like anyone else is asking for it!”

“You’ve made a lot of glasses,” Ren remarked. “Do you… do anything else?”

He nodded. “Kenny gave me these!” He produced a coloring book and some markers. “See?” He opened the book and flipped through the first few pages. His attempts at coloring didn’t quite fit inside the lines, and his color choices were… interesting… but it was easy to see he was having fun. “It… helps me forget that there’s no one around. ...When I remember that, I try to remember what I am, but I can’t. It just makes me even lonelier.” Talking about his status as a friendly Shadow didn’t seem like the best idea at the moment.

“You… don’t remember what you are?” Yukiko sat down next to him. “What’s the first thing you do remember?”

“I… This world used to be peaceful, except when the fog cleared. And now people are being thrown in here, and it can’t even be peaceful then. And then I met Kenny and Renren.”

“...Would you like a few more things to do?” Ren asked. “I think I have some old roller skates I’m not using anymore. They might fit you.”

“...Skates?” ...That reminded Ken of something.

“...I should probably leave soon, actually,” He spoke up. “Some of my senpai should be visiting during Golden Week, and one of them has a birthday coming up soon, so I should probably look for something to give her while I’m already at the store.” Sure, Mitsuru wouldn’t be too upset if he didn’t get her anything, and she could buy anything that she wanted already, but it was the principle of the thing.

Teddie blinked. “Birthday?”

“Yes. She’ll be turning twenty in about a week. So I want to get her something to… well, to recognize that, I guess.” SEES hadn’t even thought they’d live to see her become nineteen years old, so it really was just another way of spiting the apocalypse that ultimately hadn’t occurred.

She wasn’t the only one, either. His and Shinjiro’s birthdays were celebrated mostly to spite Takaya. It was just that nobody ever went as far as mentioning it.

“Wait, before you go…” Yukiko stood up. “I asked Chie, and she showed me to a great place to buy weapons. Is there anything you-?”

“Get me a spear,” He replied immediately. “The best one you can get. I’ll even give you money for it. I just need something that I didn’t take from the sporting goods section of a department store.” People would notice if ski poles started going missing in large numbers, after all.

“...You’re going already?” And now Teddie looked sad.

“Don’t worry, Teddie. I’ll stay with you for now,” Ren promised. “I can even teach you how to skate later… if you want to, anyway.”

“Could you show me, too?” Yukiko asked. “I know it can’t be much different from ice skating, but I’ve never tried before… Chie did, but she ended up losing control and… things just went downhill from there...” She was visibly holding back laughter. Ken felt a sudden urge to get back to Junes before the dam broke.

The last thing Ken heard before the constant repetition of the Junes jingle was Amagi Yukiko bursting into a laughing fit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wasn't about to ignore Yukiko's apparent passion for the Sengoku era. I expect she'd do even better in history class than she already does, if she went to Gekkoukan.
> 
> I think she's fitting in on the team quite well, don't you?


	18. In Which the Children Bond

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken has talks with Ren and Nanako. One of these is significantly longer than the other.

On Sunday, Ren invited Ken to spend time with him at the riverbank, and was pleasantly surprised when Ken agreed. They brought Koromaru along, and the dog proceeded to enjoy himself sniffing at the nearby plants.

“Did you manage to find a birthday present for that friend of yours?” Ren asked, as they watched the river flow in front of them. It wasn’t particularly interesting, but it was relaxing, and that could arguably be just as important.

Ken nodded. “I… don’t know if she’s going to be all that impressed by it, but I hope she likes it.” He produced a keychain with a large snowflake charm. “I picked it up because it reminded me of her- she uses ice magic.”

The charm glittered white and blue in the sunlight. Ren wasn’t sure why anyone would think it wasn’t impressive- he, at least, thought it was pretty.

“I think she’ll like it,” He voiced, as Ken slipped the keychain back into his pocket.

“...I hope you’re right. I… there’s a lot I owe to her. To everyone, really. They- they always listened to what I had to say, even when it- even when I was being stupid.”

“...You must really miss them.” Ken didn’t talk about the other Persona Users a lot- it was only recently that Ren had learned that they were Persona Users at all- but when he did, he always sounded incredibly fond of them.

“I spent a year and a half living with them. It’d be strange if I didn’t,” Ken pointed out. “Even if we hadn’t all been Persona Users, I think we would have been friends, if we’d had the chance to meet. But… if we weren’t Persona Users... I probably wouldn’t have met them… or you, either, come to think about it. That’s just how things worked out.”

Ren wondered, for a moment, what a group of people being Persona Users would have to do with Ken’s living arrangements a year or so later. He decided that it didn’t matter. Ken was there now, and he clearly loved his friends dearly, and that was the important part.

With that thought, the power of the Justice Arcana flickered through his mind yet again, stronger this time. So this was what it felt like, for a Social Link to get stronger…

“Well, I’m glad you’re here in Inaba,” He declared. “It’d be really hard to get things done without you- I probably wouldn’t even have found my way into the TV!” Or he would, but it would have been him who’d done the embarrassing thing and tripped right into it.

Nearby, Koromaru started barking. Ken stood up. “I think I’d better go see what he wants.” Ren nodded, and Ken hurried to go after his dog.

Ren glanced back at the river, and noticed that there were a few people out fishing that day. It seemed more interesting than just watching the water…

...Actually, he thought there might have been some fishing gear stashed away at home. Maybe he’d bring it there with him, next time.

It’d be something to do, at least.

* * *

  
  


“O-oh, I see… Yeah, I’ll tell him.” Nanako hung up the phone, slumping down on the couch next to Ken. “Dad called. He won’t be home tonight. And- and he can’t take those days off.”

Ken wasn’t entirely sure what to do in this situation. He had only just started not being the youngest person in his friend group, and Nanako was a little under half his age. But he remembered what the others had done for him, and thinking about it, that seemed like a really good starting point.

“I see… I guess that means he won’t have the time to meet my senpai, then. Some of them are going to be coming to visit soon.”

Nanako blinked at him. “Your… senpai?”

“The people I lived with before I came here. You could meet them, if you want. I think you’d like them. Not all of them are going to be here, but the ones who are… I think they’d like you, too.”

“Are you sure?” She sounded very unconvinced, which was fair enough. Ken didn’t think he’d ever told her about them in any detail.

“Why wouldn’t they? They’re… really nice people. They didn’t have to take care of me, I… gave them plenty of reason not to…” Okay, this was getting a bit too personal, time to switch tracks. “But they still- you’re someone I think they’d really like. It’s… not something I know how to explain, really. It just is.” He needed to stop now, before he dug himself any deeper or revealed something he wasn't strictly meant to.

“...What are they like?”

“The ones who are coming here?” He checked, because he didn’t have the time to list off all of the members of SEES, even just the bits that were safe for public consumption. She nodded. “Well… first, there’s Mitsuru-san. She’s the oldest. She’s not… She doesn’t always seem friendly at first, but she’s… actually really kind. She’s the one who makes sure everyone else doesn’t get into trouble, but it’s not easy, because a lot of us tend to get into trouble.”

“What does she do then?” Nanako asked. Ken just shivered.

“You don’t want to know. Anyway, next is Akihiko-san. He likes to fight, and get stronger, but he doesn’t really know how to talk to people outside the group. In high school, he had a group of girls following him around because they liked how strong he was, and it was annoying because they wouldn’t let anyone else hang out with him.”

“So they wouldn’t let him have friends?” Nanako sounded incredibly distressed by this.

Ken shook his head. “It’s really a good thing he has the rest of us. Besides him, there’s also Shinjiro-san. He’s… sort of the reason I met everyone.” That wasn’t too personal, right? He wasn’t sure. “Half the time, he’s holding Akihiko-san back from doing something stupid, and the other half, they’re enabling each other. They technically aren’t related to each other, but also they’re sort of twins? It’s complicated. But, anyway, he’s a really good cook. Before I brought him out here, he was the one who’d make food for Koromaru. And Koromaru really liked it, right, boy?”

“Arf!” Koromaru wagged his tail. Whether it was the thought of Shinjiro, or the possibility of Shinjiro’s cooking, Ken wasn’t entirely sure. Not that he could blame him, if it was the second one. Even if Shinjiro would probably take offense to the total lack of organization in the kitchen.

“And finally, there’s Kotone-san. She’s a year younger than the other three. She’s been dating Shinjiro-san for almost as long as I’ve lived with them, but I only found out about it last spring, because of… reasons.” And that was as far as he wanted to go with that. “...I’m not sure how I didn’t figure it out sooner. Out of all my senpai, not just these four, she’s the one where it’s easiest to see what she’s thinking. Maybe it’s just that I had a crush on her…” It’d probably make a funny story one day, far into the future, but not just then. “She’s the one who looks nicest, and she’s just as nice as she looks. I’m sure you’d get along with her.”

Nanako listened along, nodding on occasion. “They sound… interesting.”

“That’s one word to describe them,” Ken agreed. “And you haven’t heard about the others yet." Junpei could definitely be a force for poorly-thought-out chaos, at times. "I think they’d all like you, too, even if you don’t get to meet them just yet.”

“...I still wish Dad could be there.”

“...Yeah. Me, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken, understandably, does not want to tell Nanako about the time his actions inadvertently led to his first crush's boyfriend going into a coma. He never even meant to tell Ren and Yukiko.
> 
> Still, we will hopefully reach a point, eventually, where the Justice children can be adorable in peace. This is important.


	19. In Which SEES Comes Down to Inaba

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...Or, well, some of them do. They even get to meet some of Ken's friends.

“Everyone! You’re here!” When the train pulled into the station, Ken was already standing there, grinning with Koromaru and a small girl in pink by his side. He looked well, the light shining within him so bright it was nearly visible from the outside.

Artemisia shifted, and Mitsuru blinked. It had been some time since she’d seen Ken face to face, but something didn’t feel quite right.

“Hey, kid,” Shinjiro greeted him. “Koro-chan. Who’s the tagalong?”

“This is my cousin, Dojima Nanako. My uncle ended up not being free for the next few days, so I told her she could come along for part of today.”

“It- it’s nice to meet you,” The girl stammered out, backing up so she was behind Ken. “...Hello.”

“Don’t worry. She was like that when I first met her, too. Nanako, I told you about them, remember? That’s Shinjiro-san, and these are Mitsuru-san, Akihiko-san, and Kotone-san.” He pointed to all of them in turn. Mitsuru still couldn’t shake the feeling that something was different about him. She just couldn’t figure out what it was, other than that Artemisia was reacting to it.

Koromaru, no longer able to hold back his excitement, ran forwards to jump on Kotone. “Oh! Hello, Koro-chan! Yes, I missed you, too…” Kotone, like most of the members of SEES were prone to, immediately began to fawn over the dog.

Koromaru, too, seemed a little different. Like Cerberus was closer to the surface, now, for some reason. But it was a faint thing, and Mitsuru was pretty sure she was imagining it.

If it was something important, though, she was sure Ken would tell them about it eventually.

* * *

  
  


In preparation for everyone’s visit, Ken had decided to look around town for places that would be nice to go, and eventually settled on the hill that overlooked the town.

It wasn’t quite Junes, which was where Nanako had wanted to go, but Ken didn’t want to hang around Junes any more than he had to, anyway. People would probably find it suspicious if he spent too much time taking things to the electronics department and never bringing them out again, even if everything aside from the ski poles had been paid for.

Though he hadn’t discussed his plans for SEES’ visit in any detail with his new team, Ren and Yukiko were both there already, along with a girl Yukiko’s age in a green jacket.

“Ken-senpai!” Ren greeted him. “I didn’t think I’d see you here, today.”

“It looks like we all had the same idea,” Yukiko agreed. “Or, well… you, Amamiya-kun, and Chie did.” She restlessly fidgeted in place. “Oh, Chie, that’s Amada-kun. He’s friends with Amamiya-kun. Amada-kun, this is Satonaka Chie. We’ve been best friends since grade school.”

“It’s good to meet you, Satonaka-san.” Yukiko had already mentioned her multiple times before. It was nice to finally be able to put a face to the name. “Ah, these are some of my friends from the city who came to visit. Everyone, these are Amagi Yukiko and Amamiya Ren.”

“I’m glad to see that Ken-kun has friends!” Kotone stated cheerfully. “Oh, I’m Shiomi Kotone, by the way. It’s nice to see you again, Amagi-san. I remember you coming to greet my tennis team when we stayed at your family’s inn nearly two years ago, though your hair was a lot shorter then.”

Yukiko looked up in surprise, blinking rapidly. “That… was the sports fellowship, right? I… think I might remember that. Yours was the team from Gekkoukan High.” It was nice to see them getting along.

“...Aragaki Shinjiro.” Social niceties observed, Shinjiro wandered off to pet Koromaru. Ken figured he’d leave him to it for now.

“...Sorry about him,” Akihiko mumbled, though everyone who’d met him before knew full well his social awkwardness would most likely lead him to join his pseudo-twin at some point within the next several minutes. “He’s not really a people person. I’m Sanada Akihiko.”

“And I’m Kirijo Mitsuru. You… may have heard of me.” Mitsuru cast her gaze over the trio standing in front of her. “...I’m sure it’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance.”

Neither Ren or Yukiko met her gaze. Ken hoped it was just that they were weak to ice.

It probably wasn’t.

* * *

  
  


Whenever Ren laid his eyes on Kirijo Mitsuru, Arsene flinched and shrank down inside him. It wasn’t something he really understood, except that he felt cold whenever she looked at him. She didn’t even seem to realize she was doing it. Maybe it was a rich person thing.

“Ren-san, you should try talking to Kotone-san,” Ken suggested. “I think the two of you have a lot in common.”

Kotone was currently giving Chie and Yukiko advice on how to deal with stalkers. Ren wasn’t sure why that advice would ever be necessary, but that was what she was doing.

“Are you sure? She’s…” Scary in a completely different way from Mitsuru. Mitsuru seemed like, with just a sharp enough glare, she could freeze over the world- and given what little Ken had told him about his senpai earlier, Ren wouldn’t be overly surprised if she could- while Kotone appeared to be someone who would just bulldoze over anything that got in the way of what she wanted without even realizing it was there. It was hard to decide which one was more unnerving.

Ken just grinned. “I’m sure. The two of you are alike in a way that not a lot of people are.” Akihiko and Mitsuru both glanced at him, Mitsuru’s gaze narrowed. “So you should take this chance to get to know each other.”

“I- All right.” He could have argued, he knew, and no one would have put up much of a fuss about it. He hadn’t exactly gone there for the sake of meeting with people, it was just a thing that happened. “I’ll try.” He made no promises of results.

Kotone looked up when Ren wandered over to her and the duo of high school girls. “You want to talk to me?” She asked, blinking rapidly. “Not Ken-kun?”

“Ken-senpai told me to talk to you,” he explained. “And, well… I can talk to him any time. You guys… you haven’t seen him in a while, have you?”

She shook her head. “It’s good to know that he does have relatives who care about him, but we still miss having him and Koro-chan around. It’s… just not the same without them. And, sure, a lot’s changed since last year, but…” She trailed off, suddenly staring at Ren. “...Oh. I get it, now.”

“Get what?” He asked, even as Arsene tensed within him, a silent warning of the power that this one person held within her soul.

“You’re like me and Minato-kun,” Kotone breathed out, all of her visible interest in Chie and Yukiko vanishing. She was still unnerving. “I didn’t think we’d ever meet another, but… you know Igor, right? Long nose? Blue elevator?”

“Train car, actually,” He corrected her, not fully believing what he was hearing.

“But if you know Igor, then… This explains so much.” It was amazing, how they were talking about Personas and the Velvet Room without ever saying so much directly. Ren wasn’t sure how they were doing it, though at least it meant Chie wouldn’t be too confused. “Are you having any problems getting the things you need?”

Ren shook his head. “We can get food and bandages and stuff pretty easily, and Amagi-san says she’ll handle the other things from now on. We should be fine.”

“All right, good. So, anyway, Igor tends to have a different assistant for each person he works with. What’s yours like?”

“...Are you talking about Lavenza or Marie?”

“...You have two of them?”

* * *

  
  


As Ren and Kotone talked, Ken found himself to be the focus of Mitsuru’s gaze. “Amamiya and Amagi. They’re-?”

“Nanako doesn’t know about that,” He hurriedly stated. “And I don’t think Satonaka-san does, either. But… yes. They’re like us. I’m not sure when it happened for Ren-san, but for Amagi-san, it was about a week after I came here. We can talk about it later.” At a time when there were less people around who didn’t already know, when he’d had time to think through what he was going to say. “Just… not here. Not now. Please.”

“...We will be talking about this.”

“I had a feeling you’d say that…” His hands slipped into his pockets, fingers closing around something. “...Would this make you feel better?” He produced a small, gift-wrapped package. “It’s a week early, but you’re going to be back in Iwatodai by then. You don’t have to open it right away, but…” Mitsuru took the present.

“Thank you. I can tell you’ve put more thought into it than I would expect.” She slipped the package into her pocket without opening it. “I… believe I will wait to open it.”

Ken wasn’t sure if this was a good sign or not.

At some point, Akihiko and Nanako had gone to join Shinjiro and Koromaru. They seemed to be getting along well enough, and probably wouldn’t draw Ken directly into the question of how he’d managed to find another Wild Card on his first day in town, so he decided to join them, as well.

Koromaru happily trotted between the three humans, enjoying the attention they showered him with. He was the first to notice Ken’s approach. “Arf!”

“What, is everyone splitting up again?” Akihiko asked. Shinjiro sighed.

“Nah. If I know Koto, she’s gonna be talking to either Amagi or Amamiya for at least the next half hour. You know how she gets with new people.” That was true. It was something that made Kotone stand out, amidst the continuous miscommunication and utter lack of social skills that made up the rest of SEES, Minato included.

Ren wasn’t anywhere near that confident, either. Maybe Kotone was just special. Or maybe Ken was thinking too much into this.

“She’ll probably be a while,” He agreed. “After all, she and Ren-san are alike. They could be talking about that for a long time.” Probably not, given Ren’s general nervousness when it came to people, but it was still a possibility. If anyone could manage it, it would be Kotone.

“What do you mean?” Nanako asked, tilting her head to the side. “They don’t seem that much alike.” Of course they didn’t. Not to someone who’d never seen the both of them off in the corner, staring at empty space and coming back with the shape of their souls slightly changed.

“You might understand it if you get to know them better,” He said instead. “But… even then, it might not make much sense to you. Maybe you’ll understand when you’re older.” He wouldn’t want to pull her in to fight Shadows or anything, but perhaps one day he wouldn’t feel terrible about the idea of letting her know that they existed.

“...Maybe.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced. “...If Dad was here, we could have had our picnic.” Right. Of course she’d still be upset about that.

“Oh? You were going to have a picnic?” Shinjiro asked. She nodded. Koromaru rested his head on her lap, and she reached down to pet him.

“I dunno where we were gonna get the food from. But… he was going to play with us. It wouldn’t just be me and Ken.” There was a whine from her lap. “...Koro-chan, too.”

“You play with her?” Akihiko asked. Ken nodded. “...Should have figured. You already copy Shinji a lot, why wouldn’t you also be a good big brother?”

“Flattery won’t get you anywhere, Aki.” Shinjiro was smiling all the same.

Nanako, meanwhile, was looking at Ken as if she were seeing him for the first time, minus the shyness. “Big… brother?”

Ken couldn’t describe how those words made him feel. Still, he thought he might have to thank Akihiko later. He’d see how this went.

He already knew it probably wouldn’t be something he’d regret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When Mitsuru first arrived in Inaba, she had no reason to think Ken was using his Persona. Then she encountered his friends, who were a pair of baby Persona Users. Even if she's not as good of a Navigator as Fuuka, she was bound to figure something out.
> 
> No matter the timeline, Nanako is always going to love her Big Bro. It's one of the fundamental laws of nature, or something.


	20. In Which Ken Narrowly Avoids Execution

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, he also doesn't explain quite as much as the others would like yet, but at least he's getting there.

Nanako went home in the early afternoon, and Ren, Chie, and Yukiko wandered off somewhere, leaving Ken alone with the other present members of SEES.

“This… isn’t how I wanted you to find out about the others,” He admitted. “I was… actually still trying to figure out how to tell you about them. It seemed like something you should know, but how was I supposed to bring it up?”

“...Maybe not by sending us vaguely ominous texts?” Kotone suggested. “While I’m glad to know you don’t have plans to burn down Inaba, randomly asking about weapons is… less than reassuring.” Right. He’d done that. In hindsight, it clearly hadn’t been one of his better decisions.

“Well, we didn’t exactly have things set up yet.” This probably wasn’t making things better. “It should be fine now, though. We should be able to get everything we need.”

Mitsuru’s eyes narrowed. It was easy to see she didn’t believe him. “Food and medicine?”

“We can get that directly from Junes if we have to, or from food stalls and vending machines. Ren-san also visits one of the smaller stores, but I haven’t had time to go through it myself yet.”

“Weapons and armor?”

“Amagi-san should be able to handle that. There’s a metalworks in town that’s willing to sell to her… for some reason…” Honestly, he wasn’t too sure of why that was a thing, himself, but he wasn’t about to question something that got him access to better weapons than sporting equipment.

None of them seemed particularly reassured by this. “Why do you need that stuff, anyway?” Akihiko asked. There really wasn’t any good way to respond to that question.

“It’s… a long story. Um… before I tell you… How do you feel about friendly Shadows?” It would probably be safe, this group didn’t have Aigis in it, but it was still best to ask.

“You mean like Mochizuki?” Mitsuru checked. Ken nodded.

“Sort of. Just… less human-shaped?” There really wasn’t a good way to describe Teddie. “Like… some sort of mascot character, except there’s nobody inside the costume.”

“...I’ll believe it when I see it,” Shinjiro decided.

“I don’t think it sounds that unbelievable,” Kotone stated. “I mean, with Ryoji-kun and all…”

“Yes, but I never met the guy. And I’m pretty sure there were extenuating circumstances.”

“I could take you to meet him, if you want. We’ve got time in the day. Or… you’re still going to be here tomorrow, right?” He thought they were, but a reminder would be nice.

“We won’t be leaving until the day after tomorrow,” Akihiko replied.

Okay. Good. This meant he didn’t have to worry about leading them all through Junes right away. Sure, there was no force in the world that could impress upon Kirijo Mitsuru the concept of subtlety, but that didn’t mean Ken couldn’t do his best to mitigate that.

“Then I can take you to meet him tomorrow, and I can explain things better, then. It won’t be all that dangerous- you won’t even need your Evokers!” Glasses, maybe, but if all they’d be doing was talking to Teddie, he was sure it’d be fine. There was exactly one way he could see things not being fine, and, well, he’d done what he could to prepare for that, short of asking the others to bring weapons along to Inaba.

Shinjiro blinked. “Um-”

“It’ll be fine!” Ken wasn’t sure how reassuring he was being, but it had to be better than nothing. “Just, um… I don’t know if it’s just for while you’re here or not, but… since you’re Persona Users, maybe avoid getting too near any televisions? It’s not as dangerous as it could be right now, but I wouldn’t want to risk it.”

Left unsaid was that he didn’t want to risk any of them. He thought he’d managed to imply that well enough.

* * *

  
  


Yukiko hadn’t been a Persona User for long enough to figure out what the baseline experience would be, but she thought that, with her limited perspective, the day had been pretty surreal. What with Ken turning out to be friends with Kirijo Mitsuru, and all.

Another part of it was that, after meeting these unfamiliar Persona Users, it had actually been Chie- who had no idea that Personas even existed- that managed to get Akihiko to hold some sort of proper conversation. And promptly claimed him as a role model.

For many reasons, this was mildly disconcerting.

“Still, I’m surprised he knows Amada-kun.” Oh, a change in topic. She supposed that was a sign to pay closer attention. Even if this wasn’t quite the same as when her friend would gush about kung-fu movies. “Well enough to come visit, I mean.”

“They were living together for a while,” She replied. “I guess he was worried about him.”

Probably for good reason, if Ken had ever gotten around to talking about the TV World. Maybe even if he didn’t. From her few conversations with Ken, Yukiko could tell that he wasn’t the best person in the world at keeping secrets.

Chie nodded. “I guess so… but if Amada-kun has an uncle who he lives with now, why was he living with Sanada-san?”

Yukiko blinked. “Are you complaining about meeting someone who inspired you?”

“Yes? No? I’m not sure. But something’s fishy about all this.” Even factoring in her knowledge of Personas, she couldn’t help but agree. Even if she didn’t think this was a good time to try explaining any of that.

“I don’t think we should be questioning it,” She said instead, despite honestly being interested in the matter herself. “What we should be doing is make sure you don’t break any more umbrellas while copying your movies… and also that you don’t break Yosuke-kun.”

Chie grumbled something about Yosuke that was probably unflattering. Yukiko decided not to listen too much into it, because at least it wasn’t bringing up questions about Ken that she wasn’t sure whether she wanted answered or not.

After all, if he didn’t live with those people anymore, it couldn’t be too important.

* * *

  
  


One of these days, Shinjiro was going to acquire a dictionary and introduce Mitsuru to the proper definition of ‘practical.’ Thus including ‘not spending huge amounts of money for the sake of spending two nights in a small country town, but also squeezing four people into a single suite just because she can.’

That day was not today, mostly because it was not warm enough outside to justify crossing Gekkoukan High’s former Ice Empress. Maybe in July.

Still, the others seemed to be enjoying themselves. Earlier, Koto had pointed out that of course Mitsuru couldn’t do things the simple way- until she and Minato showed up, she hadn’t even known what a cheeseburger was. The way she said it, it felt a lot like she was judging him and Aki for it. Like it was their responsibility to teach the sheltered rich kid how to eat normal people food.

Or maybe she was implying that she wanted him to cook for her more. It could go either way, really.

Still, it was now late enough that everyone was either preparing to go to sleep or already making the attempt. He couldn’t actually tell if Aki was still conscious or not, but he was clearly not interested in dealing with the world any longer today, and Mitsuru hadn’t moved for the past half hour, so she was probably out, too.

Koto, meanwhile, was sitting almost directly in front of the TV. “You know, the Fool is your Arcana. It’s not a suggestion. No matter what Arisato makes it out to be.”

“I’m being careful,” She responded, though she still shifted to lean back a bit more. “I’m just… wondering what Ken-kun was talking about.”

“...Can we not test the things that might lead to dealing with Shadows? Just this once?”

“...I’m going to poke it.”

“Koto!” Why was it that all of his most important people were impulsive morons? Was it just a thing that tended to happen with combat-capable Persona Users?

She still poked the TV screen, because of course she did. Ripples instantly spread out from where she touched it. Curiosity satisfied, she backed away. “...All right, then. Question answered, not touching it again.” She really shouldn’t have been touching it in the first place, but Shinjiro supposed it could have been worse. If it were Aki, he would have stuck his head in just to see if there was anything interesting inside.

“And you could have gotten the exact same answer just by waiting twelve hours.” Still… now that she’d done that… it brought up a few questions that would be bothering him for a while. Mostly extensions of questions that had been bothering him for over a year now, but they still counted.

From how Koto was looking at him, she might have been able to tell. Maybe. This wasn’t the best lighting for it. “I guess. But now I know for sure not to touch the television.” Her phone buzzed. “...And now I have to try explaining to Aigis that she doesn’t have to check in literally every other hour. Wish me luck.”

That would have been a lot easier if he didn’t secretly agree with Aigis. “...Maybe redirect her to Arisato?”

“...This feels wrong somehow, but at the same time I can’t think of a good reason to disagree.”

Shinjiro mentally apologized to Minato for making him deal with Aigis more than he probably expected to.

Sadly, this was still not the strangest night he’d ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shinji, basically all of the time, particularly about Akihiko and Kotone: Yes, I love you, too, now please stop before you give me a heart attack.


	21. In Which Ken Is Not Great At Explanations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He does manage to get across some of the important things before they get into the TV, but nowhere near all of it.

“Big Bro? What are you going to do today?” Nanako asked the next morning, apparently having already decided that she was meant to be placed directly in front of the television. If she had been a Persona User, Ken would have been vaguely worried.

“Well, my senpai are still in town, so I’m probably going to spend time with them again. It’s not like I’m… going to get another chance for a while.” Maybe for a bit during summer break, but that was still a long way away. “Since Uncle’s not going to be back for dinner, maybe if we’re not too tired out I can get Shinjiro-san to make something for us.” He paused to think about it. “...Or maybe Kotone-san. She’s not quite as good, but she’s also more likely to be able to do it.”

Besides, she’d managed to teach Fuuka how to make something edible by last January, and the lessons had stuck so far, so she’d probably be able to give some kind of tips. Which was good, because Ken was already starting to get tired of ordering Chinese.

Nanako nodded. “Are you… going to be taking Koro-chan?”

“Do you want him for today?” Sure, he was going into the television, but that didn’t mean he necessarily wanted to have to sneak his dog through Junes.

“Um, well…” She looked away, visibly uncomfortable. Koromaru lay down next to her. Ken supposed that meant the decision had been made for him.

“It’s fine if you want to have him around. Just remember to take him for a walk later.”

She swiveled back around, eyes wide. “Really!?” She sounded far too excited about spending a day being responsible for a dog. Ken made a mental note to spend more time with her later.

“I mean, I can’t exactly show my senpai a lot of places if we’re bringing Koromaru around. Or, well, we could, but… it probably wouldn’t be the best idea.” The less people saw him sneaking his dog into the department store, the less likely he was to get in trouble for it.

Nanako nodded, and snuggled Koromaru, and sang along to the jingle when a commercial for Junes appeared on the TV, sticking the song back in Ken’s mind after whole days of thinking that he was probably free, never mind that he would always have had to go back to the store eventually.

...She’d probably be just fine.

* * *

  
  


“I’m never gonna be able to get this jingle out of my head…” Kotone grumbled.

“Don’t worry, you stop noticing it after a while,” Ken tried to reassure her. “It’ll just… fade into the background until another commercial comes up.” Now probably wasn’t the time to mention that, in Inaba, Junes had basically all of the advertisement space.

Mitsuru sighed. “I suppose there’s such a thing as being too memorable.”

Finally, the group arrived in front of the television that Ken used to access the other world. “Okay, first question. Did you all actually stay away from the TVs when I told you to?” It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them. It was just that two of them had consistent issues with impulse control, another could be reliably dragged into their shenanigans, and Mitsuru could barely control two of them at a time when one of them was being reasonable, let alone all three with an obvious shiny thing dangled in front of them.

“Koto poked the screen.” Okay, yes, that was basically what he’d expected. If it had been Akihiko who caved to temptation, this would probably have had shades of a rescue mission.

“Of course she did.” He wasn’t even mad. He knew this would happen. “And what happened when you did that, Kotone-san?”

“It was… weird. Like the screen was made of water, or something, except I could barely feel it. Like soap bubbles! Just with… less exploding as soon as it touches a person.”

Soap bubbles. Ken hadn’t heard that comparison before, but then, it wasn’t like he’d gone around asking for them. “All right. So, I don’t know if it’s just for this town, and it’s very not safe to try and find out, but that’s a thing that apparently happens with Persona Users, and probably anyone who’s touching them, given…” The whole thing that he had yet to explain and still didn’t know how to even begin doing so, aside from this. Which was slow and painful.

Akihiko blinked. “Huh. How did you find out about this?” Ken didn’t want to admit that he’d tripped and fallen in, so he just looked away and kept talking.

“It… just happened, really. You really shouldn’t mess around with it. There’s only really one way out once you get in, and that’s basically throwing yourself on the mercy of the Shadow who lives right behind this particular TV.” All right. This was going easier than he thought it would.

“You did say something about friendly Shadows,” Mitsuru remembered. “I assume you’re talking about this one?” He nodded.

“His name’s Teddie. He likes coloring books.” That bit probably wasn’t all that relevant, but it felt like something that he should have added, so he did. “He’s the only reason I managed to get out the first time, and since then, he’s been… sort of filling in since we don’t have an actual Navigator. He’s doing a good job, though!”

None of the others appeared to be particularly reassured by this. Shinjiro narrowed his eyes. “I really can’t take my eyes off any of you for more than five minutes, can I?”

“It took three days, actually.” This probably wasn’t helping his case. “And I’ve only been in there to fight things twice since then. The rest of the time, I was just visiting Teddie. He doesn’t really… He doesn’t have people. Except for me, and Amagi-san, and Ren-san.” Koromaru, too, but there didn’t seem to be much of a connection between the bear and the dog. “He doesn’t even have other Shadows. He doesn’t even realize he is one, and I’m not going to bring it up.” Why would he have to? Teddie was fine just the way he was.

Besides, whether Teddie knew what he was or not, pointing out that he was from a group of monsters born from people’s hearts probably counted as being rude. If there was ever a time to politely ignore someone’s circumstances, this was almost definitely it.

* * *

  
  


Talking about how Persona Users were able to do certain things was, for the most part, helpful for everyone who had ever been in SEES. It was, after all, important to remember that not everyone could do the sort of things they did, even things that didn’t explicitly have superpowers as the only possible explanation to an outside observer. But there were times when these rules weren’t so helpful.

Persona Users could summon their Personas using an Evoker. Helpful, except for how Ken said they wouldn’t be needing them, and Shinjiro hadn’t touched one in ages, not that he particularly wanted to, most of the time.

Persona Users could retain their memories of things most people didn’t. Helpful, except for one February where that hadn’t been the case, and the missing gaps had been large enough that Shinjiro still didn’t remember anything about Minato from before last spring- though that might have just been the coma. It wouldn’t be the only thing that had been knocked loose.

Apparently, Persona Users could enter televisions. “There’s a bit of a drop,” Ken warned, leaning slightly against the appliance in question with no care for how the screen lit up where he touched it. “It should be fine, though. Just… don’t think about how high it is.” And with that, he climbed through, the ripples fading away to a black screen once more.

Shinjiro was the closest one to the television. “We taught that kid far too well,” He commented, pressing his hand to the screen. For a few seconds, he could feel the screen under his hand, and then ripples began to pulse out and it felt like he was reaching into a bucket of water.

There was no response from Castor. At this point, he wasn’t sure why he’d ever been expecting it.

Koto nodded. “I know I should be more worried about how he’ll be fighting Shadows and stuff, but… I’m more worried about the people he’ll be working with. Or maybe just Inaba in general. There’s barely enough room in the city for our brand of crazy, this town might not be able to keep up.” It was hard to argue with that. “Come on, let’s get going.”

He took his other hand, and the portal immediately became easier to keep open. Shinjiro decided he wasn’t going to question it too much.

Five seconds later, he was tumbling through empty space and telling himself to never listen to the others ever again, well aware that they’d probably talk him into doing another stupid thing before the week was out.

This might actually have been in the running for the weirdest day he’d ever had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken is still secretly dreading the moment he has to admit he's exploring the other world in order to investigate a murder case. For now, however, he's choosing to focus on ensuring everyone knows that the cute Shadow is friendly.


	22. In Which SEES Visits A TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken actually explains things, and is less than enthusiastic about it.

It probably said something about Ken that getting used to falling from a great height was easy. Particularly when the others actually took time to follow him, though that may just have been because Akihiko was standing relatively far from the television that had been marked out as safe.

He wouldn’t just jump through a random set for no reason. Among other things, he’d have known full well that Shinjiro and Mitsuru would kill him if he did anything that stupid. Ken didn’t worry too much.

As always, he was immediately greeted by an excited Shadow, this time flailing at him at high speeds. “Watch out!” The bear called, too late for Ken to avoid getting flattened.

“Ow…” He wasn’t really hurt. Even Dia would have been unnecessary. “...I see you got those roller skates.”

Teddie nodded happily. “Yep! Renren’s been showing me how to use them!” People started hitting the ground behind Ken. “...Who are they?”

“These are my senpai. They’re the ones who first taught me about Shadows and Personas. Everyone, this is Teddie. He doesn’t know what he is, but he’s been very helpful to me.” The more times he repeated statements of Teddie being of use, the more likely he’d be able to convince Aigis to get along with him, in the eventuality that he was visited by a robot with little patience for smiley, energetic Shadows. “I hope you can all get along.”

“Kenny’s… senpai?” Teddie tilted his head to the side. “You’re all Bearsona Users?”

Mitsuru raised an eyebrow, silently asking if the bear was always like this. Ken couldn’t do anything but nod. “That is correct,” She stated, as if this silent exchange had not occurred. “We all possess the power of Persona, in one way or another.”

If it were anyone but Mitsuru, it would be comical to see her speaking in her overly polite, dispassionate way with the Shadow equivalent of a lost child. As far as Ken was aware, however, that was just how Mitsuru was, and it would be weirder if she acted any other way.

“Not that it helps much with this fog…” Akihiko muttered.

Ken slipped his glasses on, and the studio came back into focus. “...Right. You don’t have glasses. I mean, this should be the only time you come in here, and I don’t think anything should happen that will make you need them…” He glanced at Teddie, hoping to get some sort of confirmation. “Isn’t that right, Teddie?”

The bear blinked, but was still quick enough to reply. “Well… nobody else has been thrown in here, if that’s what you mean.” Good. This really wasn’t the time for that sort of thing.

Mitsuru paused. “Thrown… in?” Ken tried not to shiver. He failed.

He was in trouble.

* * *

  
  


Of course. Of course the kid would volunteer to investigate a possibly-supernatural murder case for little reason other than that his friend was sad. Shinjiro wasn’t sure why he’d expected anything different.

...Right. Because the kid, for the most part, seemed to actually possess common sense. It was just that this one particular thing touched on something he’d always known was an exception.

“...So, what were you going to do if this ‘castle’ turned out to be too much for you?” Koto asked.

Ken shrugged. “Goho-M. Call for backup. Hope you could get here before the fog came in.” This was, at least, a somewhat sensible backup plan.

Not that Shinjiro was entirely pleased with this. And with the glasses Ken was wearing, he could probably see the look on his face when he asked, “And why wasn’t that your Plan A?”

“You can’t come running down to Inaba whenever someone in town disappears. I’m pretty sure you’ve all got better things to do. Even you, Akihiko-san.” Aki slowly closed his mouth without saying anything.

It made sense. Shinjiro hated it, but it made sense. Of course the kid would jump straight to the scene of anything odd happening, he was one of exactly three Persona Users in Inaba that weren’t actively throwing people into televisions. And it wasn’t like he didn’t have a history of this sort of thing.

Still… “I mean, that’s a matter of opinion, really.”

“Since when was making sure you’re not left on your own unimportant?” Koto asked, crossing her arms. There really wasn’t any good way to respond to that. “Especially if it keeps Akihiko-senpai from doing something dumber than usual?”

He really, really couldn’t argue with that. Aki might have mostly grown past ‘punch everything that moves,’ but that didn’t mean he wasn’t still an idiot at times.

_ ‘I’ve never really thought I’m that important.’ _

Oh. It had been a while since he heard that voice, even if it was just like his own. He’d always been able to tell the difference, even if he hadn’t heard that version of his voice in well over a year. Even if he’d been sort of hoping to never hear it again, except if he admitted that to anyone, they’d just start worrying about him again.

“...Shinji? Are you paying attention to me?”

“I-it’s fine. I’m just… still waking up, that’s all.” Never mind that, even before tumbling through a television, he’d been just as awake as he’d been for the past year.

Even without being able to see her face clearly through the fog, he could still tell that she wasn’t entirely convinced.

“So, you went to get Amagi a while back because she was pushed in here?” Aki moved back to the topic they’d actually come to this world to discuss. “But… she has a Persona now.” Those two sentences didn’t necessarily go together, but they’d all known him for long enough to understand what he meant, if not why he’d suddenly changed the subject.

“Right… well…” Ken was fidgeting again. Shinjiro had known him for long enough to be able to tell that this was a bad sign, for more reasons than the obvious one. “Mitsuru-san? Do you remember that theory you and Aigis-san came up with, about Shadows and Personas?”

Mitsuru sighed. “You could stand to be a bit more specific than that.” Which was true. They’d cooked up a lot of theories, some more serious than others.

“The one about them being mostly the same.” Shinjiro remembered that one, if only because they’d been using him as basic evidence, never mind that this was the first time in well over a year that Castor was reacting to anything. “I… you were right. About that. It was… different from what I expected. I think.”

He didn’t even know. But then, it wasn’t like anyone was entirely sure of what to expect from this sort of place. Shadows were unpredictable.

“In what way?” It was more curiosity than anything, now, which meant that it probably wasn’t going to get any colder.

Good. Shinjiro never seemed to be warm enough to begin with.

* * *

  
  


Ken had to think about the most recent question, because it was hard to explain how things were different than expected when he hadn’t even realized he’d had expectations to begin with.

“The Shadow… at first, it looked like Amagi-san, sort of. Only, Amagi-san was wearing a kimono at the time, and her Shadow was in a dress. The really frilly kind you see magical girls wear, or maybe a princess.” He hoped none of them asked why his first thoughts were of magical girls. Nanako’s TV habits were contagious.

“Or maybe like Artemisia?” Akihiko suggested. He wasn’t even entirely wrong.

“That… maybe.” This probably wasn’t a direction he wanted discussion to take while Mitsuru was in the room. “Anyway, she and Amagi-san… well, she wanted Amagi-san’s attention, and was exaggerating Amagi-san’s actual feelings to get it. And, when Amagi-san recognized that, her Shadow became a Persona.” Come to think of it, maybe it was a good time to possibly ask Yukiko for her Persona’s name. Just so he could be less awkward about this.

“...There’s something you’re not mentioning.” Was he that obvious?

“Well, before that, she tried to deny her Shadow and it turned into a giant bird and tried to kill her, but Ren-san and I handled it.”

Teddie nodded, excitedly hopping in place, before slipping and tumbling to the ground because he’d forgotten he was still wearing his skates. “It was so cool! Kenny was throwing light around everywhere, and Renren used ice cubes to freeze up her wings!”

Ken helped the bear up from the ground. There wasn’t any real reason to leave him lying there.

“It wasn’t a very strong Shadow. All of its spells were first-tier!” He got the feeling this wasn’t actually helping his case all that much. “...Of course, that also means Amagi-san probably doesn’t have a strong Persona yet, but we can fix that!” He wasn’t actually planning on running the castle again too quickly, but the option was there.

Akihiko glanced off into the fog, despite Ken knowing there was no chance he could actually see anything. “...I guess we’re not going to be around enough to really stop you.”

It was nice to see they all understood each other.

* * *

  
  


They left the TV soon afterward, because Ken wanted Shinjiro and Koto to help make something for his cousin to eat, and that meant getting food. “See… I’m pretty sure the most edible thing in the fridge is her science project…” This was concerning for a large number of reasons, not least of which being that Ken was apparently considering eating his cousin’s science project.

Despite the fact that the fog had been just as effective at sapping away their energy as the Dark Hour, it was a general agreement that, while they were there, they couldn’t let Ken starve.

So. Grocery shopping.

“Sort of wish I could have seen more of what that other world was like,” Aki mused.

“If you could, you would have run off to punch Shadows in the face and I would’ve never seen you again.”

“I wouldn’t.” Given how he wasn’t immediately leaping to defend himself more than that, Shinjiro believed him. “For one thing, Mitsuru would kill me.”

“It’s nice to see you’ve finally grown a sense of self-preservation.”

“You know, just because you’re not interested in this stuff-”

“Couldn’t go back to it if I tried, anyway.” He hadn’t meant to say quite that much. “...At least, I don’t think I could.” After leaving the television, Castor had gone silent again. He couldn’t say he missed him.

“Physically, or-?”

“Past a certain point, is there a difference?” Aki didn’t respond. “But… probably both? I mean… I might be able to if I went into a TV again, but I really don’t want to go into a TV again.” It had been strange enough the first time.

“...All right, then.” If only Shinjiro had been so able to get Aki to drop the subject back in high school… but then, if he had, he probably wouldn’t have lived this long. Aki wandered over to a large selection of frozen meat. “Hey, do you think-?”

“Don’t you dare.”

It was nice that things could settle back to normal so quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if it's going to come up again, but it's there if I need to bring it up later. Shinji's never actually told anyone that Castor's still mostly asleep, but Aki knows him well enough to have figured it out on his own. (Kotone, too, but she still hasn't mentioned that she's figured it out.)
> 
> If the present members of SEES were any less tactful, they would probably have brought up what happened the last time Ken decided to do something like this. As it is, they were all close enough to the situation to not say anything.


	23. In Which SEES Is Done Visiting, For Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The rest of SEES' visit passes by peacefully. This is probably a good thing.

Another thing that probably said something slightly alarming about Ken was that the Dojima household only really started feeling like home once he’d managed to crowd half of SEES into it.

It hadn’t been particularly easy. Koromaru, of course, had been excited to have the company, and Nanako hadn't been upset to see them, and they were both tiny, but this was still six humans and a dog crowded into one house where all but the tiniest human could not safely touch the TV.

They made it work, though. At the moment, Shinjiro and Kotone were cooking together- exciting, as it meant that the food would be extra good- while Mitsuru busied herself with something on her phone- probably involving earlier revelations- and Akihiko talked with Ken and Nanako.

“You’re taking care of your Big Bro, right?” He asked, seriously. Nanako nodded.

“I can make breakfast! And do the laundry. Which is good, because Dad can’t do those things even when he does have time.”

“I don’t need to be taken care of by a six-year-old…” Ken grumbled, aware they were barely paying him any attention. “I’m sure I can figure out food on my own.”

Akihiko did not appear convinced. “The last time you tried, you almost set fire to the frying pan.”

“I know what I did wrong! It’s not going to happen again.”

“Really!?” If Nanako’s eyes were any brighter, they’d be actually sparkling. Ken was the one with powers over light, and even his eyes didn’t do that, even at moments like now, when Kala-Nemi was happily shimmering at the presence of most of Ken’s favorite people.

“I mean, I’m not sure what I make would be very good… It’s always been Kotone-san, Shinjiro-san, or Fuuka-san doing the cooking.”

“Can’t be much worse starting out than Fuuka was, though,” Akihiko pointed out.

“I guess you’re right… but that isn’t really saying much.” She’d improved a lot, given time, but the earlier attempts were… the stuff of nightmares, honestly. “Are you sure her girlfriend moved, and wasn’t just poisoned?”

“She came by to visit the week before you left!”

“I never said the poisoning was lethal.” Not that he really believed her cooking by itself would have put Natsuki in the hospital for that long, but… it was nice to imagine a world where he hadn’t been the only one continually wasting Revival Beads.

Still, it was a good thing Fuuka wasn’t there to hear them talking about this. He couldn’t imagine that discussion possibly ending well.

* * *

  
  


“Your friends are really nice,” Nanako commented after the last of the visitors had left the house.

Ken shrugged. “I did tell you they were. Didn’t you believe me?”

“Of course I did! It’s just… They’re even nicer than you said.” He wasn’t sure what she meant by that.

“They did let me live with them for a while,” He pointed out. “If Uncle hadn’t gotten around to taking me in, I’d still be living with them now.” If not for the fact that he had a murder case to investigate, he’d wonder if staying wouldn’t have been the better choice. “That’s… not something you do. Without being nice.” And he really couldn’t go much farther into that. At least, not without dragging up things that were better left buried.

“I guess not… Thanks for letting me have Koro-chan today.”

“You seemed like you needed him more than I did.” Besides, he was twelve and surrounded by people who had all possessed Personas for much longer than he had. Nanako was six, and would have been completely on her own otherwise. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. “And the two of you enjoyed yourselves, right?”

“Arf!” Koromaru’s tail simply would not stop wagging.

Nanako nodded, her eyes once again shining so brightly it was hard to believe that Ken was the one who held powers over light. “Uh-huh! We went on a walk to the shrine, and we met a fox! Your friend from school was there, too. I think he was trying to make friends with it.”

Ken took a moment to hope that Ren wasn’t trying to acquire a third animal companion for the group, assuming that someone as articulate as Teddie counted as an animal companion. Sure, he himself had proved it possible to sneak an animal through Junes multiple times, but Koromaru was a very special dog.

Besides, he wouldn’t want his friend to hurt himself while dealing with a fox. That was certainly another possibility. “A fox, huh? How did that go?”

“I’m not sure. He was just… talking to it, really.” Admittedly, a surprisingly good way to make friends with animals. Ken knew Aigis was good friends with a lot of the strays living around the dorm where she and Yukari had stayed their third year of high school…

...Actually, thinking about it, Aigis might have been the reason there were so many stray animals around in the first place. He did remember her asking Kotone for cat food once…

He was going to keep talking to Nanako before that train of thought could continue any further.

* * *

  
  


He didn’t want them to go, really.

Ken knew his fellow Persona Users had lives outside of Inaba. That was the whole reason he hadn’t called them as soon as he started regularly clambering through a television. But he still wished they could stay.

At some point, Kotone had acquired Yukiko’s contact information, and was even now sending her details on how to pick out good weapons and armor. At least, to a certain extent.

“She wants to use a fan. How do I tell her how to find the right fan?”

Ken couldn’t do anything but shrug. “I think she wants to use it as a magical focus? But we all had ours just handed to us, so…” Could an Evoker be counted as a magical focus if most of what it did was slowly traumatize the person who used it?

“You can look it up later,” Akihiko shrugged. “I mean, I don’t think she’ll need it right away?”

“She shouldn’t, unless something goes terribly wrong.” Left unsaid was that things were probably going to go terribly wrong at some point, but hopefully it wouldn’t be until they had weapons.

“This isn’t the sort of thing that you just let wait, though…” Kotone pointed out. “Having proper equipment on hand is always important.”

“...So, could you tell us how we’re supposed to take armor through Junes without being questioned?” The weapons, at least, could probably be concealed, or disguised as something different in the case of Ken’s spear, but there were only so many ways to avoid drawing attention when their clothing would look ridiculous.

“...Maybe don’t introduce Yukiko-chan to Battle Panties?”

“I don’t think we have to worry about that,” Mitsuru stated. “If only because we stopped wearing ours in battle the second there were better options.” There was a story there, and Ken was completely determined to not ask about it.

“I guess you’re right…” Kotone flipped her phone shut, stuffing it into her pocket more quickly than was strictly necessary. “Still… Ken-kun, you’ll be careful, right?”

“I’m always careful!” He wasn’t. They all knew it. But it still felt like it was worth a try.

And even if he wasn’t always careful, it still wasn’t going to turn out like last time. Least of all because he was already collecting Attack Mirrors. Just in case.

His insistence must have been worth something, because nobody put up too much of a fuss about it.

“You take care of Nanako-chan, too, all right?” Shinjiro asked. “Make sure you both get enough to eat. Don’t leave the refrigerator uncleaned for another year.”

“It might not have been a whole year…” It probably had been. The kitchen was not the most well-organized place in the house. “But I will. I promise.” After all, if he didn’t, who would?

They all seemed satisfied he could take care of himself, and left after simply making him promise to contact them if things got particularly harsh.

Kala-Nemi dulled, a little, to see them go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I started this story just for the sake of having two adorable Justice children in the same room on regular occasions. I'm not sure why this is happening.
> 
> Still, now we can actually get back to the plot of Persona 4.


	24. In Which Yukiko Has Exams

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fortunately, the children are more than capable of getting by without her. For the most part.
> 
> ...Okay, so they may be a bit lonely.

As exciting as it was for Yukiko to possess the power of Persona, to be able to enter the television and battle creatures far beyond her wildest imaginings… the fact remained that she still had exams to study for.

It probably said something that Chie was currently able to pay more attention than she was. “Hey, Yukiko, are you all right? You’ve been zoning out all day…”

“I have? Sorry.” She shook her head. Math problems had been a lot easier to keep in focus when she wasn’t worriedly recalculating how much money Ken and Ren had given her in order to make sure she could provide them with equipment for the fifth time in as many hours. Once this was done, she had some very important shopping to do. “I have a lot on my mind, right now.”

Chie nodded, putting her pencil down for the moment. “...D’you wanna talk about it?”

“Not really…” The exams, the case, everything about trying to figure out what she wanted… how could she ever have time for all of it?

“...So, can we go back to studying, then? Yosuke bet me three hundred yen that I couldn’t beat him in exam results. That’s enough for two grilled steak croquettes!”

“...Don’t you spend your money on anything besides meat?” Also movies, sometimes, but that didn’t happen enough to be worth mentioning.

Chie rolled her eyes. “Of course I do! I also get gum!”

Yukiko successfully resisted the urge to point out that the gum was also meat-flavored.

* * *

  
  


“Big Bro? I was wondering something…” Nanako trailed off, fidgeting with her pencil as she worked on homework.

Ken had finished his own work some time before, in-between using his phone to remind Yukiko of what he was looking for in a spear, as well as informing Junpei of the many reasons he couldn’t just come down to Inaba, the least of which being that Chidori would not be happy with him. “What is it?”

“What was Auntie like?” Of course it was something he hadn’t expected. “I never met her, but Dad was really sad when he heard she died. So… I want to know about her.”

“I’m… not really sure how much I can tell you,” He admitted. “I don’t really know how to describe Mom. She was just… Mom. You know? I mean, if I asked you, would you be able to describe your parents?”

“I can describe Dad. That’s really easy. He’s busy.” The sheer emphasis placed on that last word told Ken that Nanako thought that was all that needed to be said. “Mom… I don’t know. I don’t remember her all that well.” And there they had it. “I just know that she was supposed to pick me up from school, and- and then she didn’t.”

Honestly, that didn’t sound anywhere near as bad as what Ken had gone through, but he supposed that now wasn’t the time to be comparing traumas. Being able to experience the Dark Hour had given him an unfair advantage in that regard… if it could even be called that.

The commercial break ended, and Nanako was immediately reabsorbed into the quiz show. Ken shrugged, and leaned back, as Koromaru sat himself down between the two of them.

If she didn’t want him to continue the conversation, either, he was just fine with that.

* * *

  
  


One of the benefits of wearing his glasses all the time was that it made it easier for Ren to visit the TV World whenever he wanted to.

“Hi, Renren!” Teddie, apparently, hadn’t quite gotten used to the novelty of owning a pair of roller blades. “Kenny came by to visit a while back. He had a lot of friends with him!”

Right. Ren wasn’t sure what to think of the people who had been more or less raising Ken for a while, but his friend seemed to hold them all in high regard. “I met them, too. It was… sort of nice. One of them was… she was like me.”

“Like you?” Teddie’s ears twitched. “What do you mean?”

“She’s a Wild Card. I’m not… I’m not the only one. There’s other people who have multiple Personas.” He’d sort of realized that had to be the case, if Ken had heard about them beforehand, but it was another thing entirely to meet one in person. “I’m not… different from literally everyone else. There’s… others like me.”

Teddie blinked. He didn’t seem to fully understand what Ren was getting at. “And that’s... a good thing, right?”

“R-right.” He nodded, sharply, hoping that got the point across that he wasn’t interested in continuing this particular topic of conversation.

“...I’m glad you have other people like you.” It was strange, to hear the bear’s voice sound so small. “...Renren? Do you think that… there are others like me, too?”

“Well… there’d have to be, wouldn’t there? I mean, you can’t be the only one. It’s just- you have to come from somewhere, right?” Just because he didn’t know what that somewhere was wasn’t a reason to assume it didn’t exist.

“I don’t know. I’ve only ever lived here.” Right. That was a problem.

Ren adjusted his glasses and tried not to think about the possibility of being lost and alone forever. “I guess it can’t be that easy.”

“Guess not!” And suddenly, he was all cheerful again. “Do you think Yuki-chan’s going to come and visit me soon?” His eyes were practically shining at the very thought, like a pair of stars.

Ren hated to let him down. “That… I don’t think so.”

“What!? Why not?” Teddie jumped back a little, slipped on his skates, and fell to the ground. Ren figured it couldn’t hurt too much to leave him there for now.

“It’s exam week. That means lots of tests, and Amagi-san seems like a really good student, so she’ll be studying a lot in order to do extra well on them.”

“...Studying?” Right. Concepts that seemed universal to humans might as well not exist for a bear who’d lived his whole life in the fog.

“You know, reading, learning whatever you can…”

“That sounds fun!”

“You’d be surprised.” But then, maybe anything would be exciting to someone who spent as much time on his own as Teddie did. “Still… if you’d like, maybe I could show you some of the books my class has been using in school?” Ren was sort of worried that, if he didn’t do anything to keep the bear occupied, he’d come back to find the studio had been bearied in glasses.

...Oh, great. Apparently, his thought patterns were contagious, too.

* * *

  
  


It was something that Ken never failed to notice, that as soon as exam week started, high school students literally never had time for anything else. They just went to school, sat the exams, and collapsed as soon as they got home, if they weren’t somehow squeezing in extra study time.

University students weren’t much better. He remembered once spending a week as Akihiko’s personal assistant, which in this case meant ‘reminding him to eat once in a while, because everyone else was too busy with their own exams to do so.’ Suffice to say, Ken wasn’t looking forward to university all that much.

And then there was Tatsumi Kanji, who had apparently decided that studying was less important than sitting by the river and petting as many animals as possible.

When Ken approached Kanji, he startled, turning around with a wide-eyed look on his face. “Oh, um, Amada! It- it isn’t what it looks like!”

“It looks like you have a lot of friends. Why would you try to say you don’t have friends?” This was arguably worse than Shinjiro in the middle of a depressive episode. At least those made sense.

“Well- I mean- just- ...Please don’t tell anyone about this.” He sighed in defeat, and reached over to pet one of the gathered cats. “I know Amamiya likes cats, but…”

“My lips are sealed,” He promised. “But… Kanji-san, don’t you have exams to study for?” He was wearing a school uniform, Ken assumed that meant he was actually attending classes.

Kanji shrugged. “I mean… I wasn’t gonna get top of the class or nothing, anyway…”

“That just makes studying more important… or, at least, that’s what some of my senpai say.” And by some of them, he meant Mitsuru and Minato. Others, like Shinjiro, couldn’t really care less. Which side Junpei took varied depending on the subject and whether or not Chidori was in the room at the time. “I don’t… actually know if it’s true or not.” Even if he wasn’t a genius like Mitsuru and the Wild Cards, he was still an above-average student.

“I guess that… wouldn’t be the senpai I remind you of.” Ken shook his head.

“No, Akihiko-san just did as well as he could just to prove how good he was, and Shinjiro-san had to be held back a year for... um... health reasons. It was one of their classmates who first brought it up.” He wasn’t about to mention her by name, because he knew that Kanji wouldn’t believe him. “And then some of the younger ones picked it up as well. Still… I guess the cats wouldn’t like it if you left them to go study.”

“Who says I’m doing this for the cats?” Immediately, a particularly fluffy feline cuddled up to him. “Aw, who’s a cute widdle kitty…” And then he remembered Ken was there. “Seriously, though, not a word about this to anyone.”

Ken nodded, smiled a little, and walked away. What Kanji wanted to do with his time wasn’t any of his business. Besides, he had his own fluffy friend to get home to.

When he passed the shrine, Ren was talking to a fox wearing an apron. He decided to not ask and keep going.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> These kids may need a few hugs. Then again, I'm pretty sure that's the default for Persona party members, so...
> 
> Teddies one of the easier characters for me to write because all I have to do for him to be in-character is exaggerate his reaction to whatever emotions he's likely to be feeling at the moment, because he does not do subtle.


	25. In Which Kanji Appears on TV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Preparations are made for the next showing of the Midnight Channel. Some do more for this than others.

“Amamiya. Why do you keep following me?”

“What makes you think I’m following you?” Ren replied, ignoring the fact that this conversation had happened before. “And… Why do you want to think the worst of me? Why not just let me be your friend?” Wouldn’t things be a lot easier, that way? Wouldn’t they both be happier?

“Having friends is less important than studying.” Shu’s voice sounded almost robotic as he parroted those words. “Besides, why bother with me? Don’t you already have Amada?”

Ren blinked. “...People are allowed to have more than one friend.”

“...I guess so. Just don’t bother me when I’m studying.” Ren wasn’t sure if there was ever a time when Shu wasn’t studying, but if that happened, he made a note to be there so he could take advantage of it.

“I won’t. I promise.”

Shu gave him a look from behind his glasses which clearly said that he didn’t believe him. “...You’re going to disturb me while I’m studying, and ruin my grades, aren’t you?”

“I’m going to try my hardest not to!” Ren insisted. Even then, he was sure that he wasn’t being believed.

Though… the Social Link he’d apparently formed with Shu did rank up, so… he wasn’t sure. Even at the best of times, people could be really confusing. Adding in the whispers of major Arcana, despite what Lavenza told him, did not actually make things any easier.

He’d just have to continue on with his life and hope that this all made sense eventually.

* * *

  
  


Ken’s semi-normal life was broken up by a new report on biker gangs. “...Isn’t that Kanji-san from the textile shop?” He asked, blinking. Somehow, this didn’t surprise him as much as it probably should have.

“I’m surprised you recognized him,” His uncle replied.

“Ren-san introduced us. He’s actually really nice.” He held back from mentioning the cats, because he’d been told not to tell anyone about it.

Nanako tilted her head to the side, watching the violence on screen. “...Really?”

“Well, he’s not like that when those bikers are involved. Apparently, they’ve been keeping his mother up at night. She’s probably going to have to apologize again…”

Right. There were consequences for that sort of thing, when someone wasn’t backed by one of Japan’s largest business conglomerates.

The camera footage cut out. Presumably, Kanji had done something to break the recording equipment. “But why did the news say he was part of the gang? All you have to do is talk to him to see he doesn’t like them very much.”

“Who knows? Sensationalism, probably. You may not have noticed, but we don’t have the most professional journalists in this town.” Right. Ken remembered the Amagi Inn interview. He hadn’t even met Yukiko at the time, but it was easy to see that she hadn’t been very comfortable.

“...I feel bad for Kanji-san. People are probably going to be talking about him a lot, now.”

His uncle shrugged. “Well, he should have thought about that before he ended up on TV.”

That didn’t quite sit right with Ken. It reminded him too much of Minato and Yukari scolding Kotone for punching their classmates in the weeks right after everything had gone wrong. Even if, from what he’d heard, those classmates really deserved to be punched.

But then, even ignoring the physical consequences, it probably wasn’t healthy to be picking fights with everyone. Otherwise, they’d all worry about Akihiko a lot less.

Either way, this probably wasn’t the time to start an argument about that. He’d just finish eating and go back to his room.

* * *

  
  


The next day, it rained heavily. Ren met with Ken and Yukiko at a picnic shelter by the Samegawa. Technically speaking, Ken and Yukiko’s phones meant this hadn’t had to be an in-person meeting, but they’d all gone along with it, either way.

“I managed to get the equipment the two of you were asking for,” Yukiko stated, before she placed a spear on the table and a pair of daggers clattered out of her sleeves. “...I suppose I couldn’t have expected them to stay in place all day.”

Ren reached out for the daggers, fingers brushing the hilts, imagining the ways they could fit in his hands. “You… had these with you in school all day?” He wasn’t sure whether to be highly impressed or mildly disturbed. Maybe both. Both was good.

“I thought it might be better to get them to you ahead of time.” Her smile said nothing about how she’d gotten away with having weapons with her all day.

Ken picked up the spear, weighing it in his hands. “It’s not the best one I’ve ever used… but it’ll do. There’s not much that can hold up to Tonbo-Kiri or Pinaka, anyway.”

“...Tonbo-Kiri?” Yukiko fixed Ken with an unreadable stare. Ren supposed it couldn’t have been too bad, though, or else the air would have been smoldering. “As in, the spear owned by Honda Tadakatsu? That Tonbo-Kiri?”

“...Possibly? I mean, that’s what Minato-san said it was called… but he also calls his sword Excalibur, so…” He shrugged. “Though my Gae Bolg is probably as close to the actual thing as it’s possible to get, and Mitsuru-san's Snow Queen Whip is almost definitely unique... I don’t know.”

“...That sounds like you have a lot of spears,” Ren commented, wondering who in their right minds had decided to give an eleven-year-old weapons. “And you still needed Amagi-san to get you one?”

“Have you ever tried mailing a weapon?” Okay, that was a pretty good point. “Besides, if I got a package, my uncle would ask me what was in it. This way, he doesn’t have to know.”

Another fair point. If Ren’s parents were the kind of people to pay attention to him when they didn’t have to, he’d probably have to go to a lot of effort to not get in trouble for owning daggers. As it was, he could probably get away with just keeping them in his bag all day. The teachers at school didn’t pay that much attention to what he was carrying around, either.

“Th-thank you, Amagi-san.” When he picked them up, the daggers were heavy in his hands, though he was sure he’d get used to them in time. “I’ll try not to lose them.”

“You’d better not,” Ken agreed. “Good weapons are expensive.”

* * *

  
  


_ Iori Junpei: I can’t believe Mitsuru-senpai liked your gift more than mine! You weren’t even here! _

_ Amada Ken: And the mugwort made a good gag gift the first time because she wasn’t expecting it. You can’t just do the same thing every year, Junpei-san. _

Admittedly, Ken was pretty sure that, at the moment, Junpei was complaining more for the sake of it than anything else, particularly since the eighth had now passed. He did that sometimes.

_ Iori Junpei: She said that if I could spend the time looking up the latin names of plants for a joke, I had the time to study more. I need a break sometimes, too! _

_ Amada Ken: And you use those breaks to mess with her. I think I can see where the problem is. If Minato-san hasn’t pointed it out already, it’s because he also likes messing with people. _

_ Iori Junpei: ...Chidorita likes my jokes. _

_ Amada Ken: And, sadly, I don’t think there’s a genus of plants named Medea. Maybe try a different kind of humor. Or stop messing with Mitsuru-san. You know she could turn you into a block of ice without really trying. _

He hated it when he had to feel like the adult.

* * *

  
  


As he, Ren, and Yukiko had agreed, Ken stayed up late to watch the Midnight Channel, and the others would probably do the same. The rain had not let up during the day, and was now pouring down in sheets thick enough to block out the view from his window. Sometimes, lightning would flicker, and thunder would crash in the distance, causing the walls of the house to shake with the echoes.

On the wall above him, the clock loudly ticked, counting down the seconds until midnight. While it had been well over a year since it last happened, Ken still faintly wondered if, just for him, just for tonight, the world would turn green.

The world, of course, did not turn green. The world had not turned green for a very long time, and hopefully it would never turn green again. And this was a good thing. The Dark Hour in Inaba couldn’t have been any better than the Dark Hour in Iwatodai.

Instead, the clock struck twelve, and, just like always the television display turned on by itself.

Just like always, a shape appeared on the screen, and like with Konishi when he’d seen her, and Yukiko on the first night, it was an image so shrouded in static that it was almost unrecognizable.

Almost. But not quite.

When the image appeared on the screen, Kala-Nemi sparked, grabbing hold of Ken’s attention and directing it to the screen, urging him to take as close a look as possible.

Ken stood up and approached the screen. Got as close up as he possibly could without letting his nose touch the screen, make it ripple, and cause the image to fade before the Midnight Channel’s already-limited runtime ran out.

...There was no mistaking it. Out of the admittedly few people he’d met in Inaba so far… there was only one it could be.

“...Kanji-san?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shu, are you even doing anything? Why are you here?
> 
> Weapons are complicated. Especially when there's someone whose weapon of choice is not particularly easy to hide.


	26. In Which Tatsumi Textiles is Visited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group is pretty sure they know who the next target is. They even know him personally.
> 
> Does this make it any easier? Of course not.

So far, the most of what the group had managed to put together was that the silhouette that kept appearing on the recent Midnight Channel was probably Tatsumi Kanji, as he had a profile very similar to that of the silhouette.

“My parents have been telling me I shouldn’t be talking to Kanji-san,” Ren stated. “...They still haven’t noticed the daggers. But they say Kanji-san might give me… ideas.”

He didn’t describe what ideas his parents thought Kanji would give him in any detail. Ken could list a surprising number of possibilities, but wasn’t completely sure about any of them.

“My uncle was… well, he wasn’t quite saying the same thing, but he was implying it.” In a disapproving tone, which sort of made Ken wonder what his reaction would be if he were to meet Shinjiro. “I wish they wouldn’t say those kinds of things. Kanji-san’s really nice.”

Yukiko nodded along. “I think I know what you’re talking about,” She stated. “My parents used to do a lot of business with Kanji-kun’s mother. Of course, that hasn’t happened as much since my last growth spurt…” She trailed off before shaking her head. “We haven’t really talked to each other much since then. I… don’t think we have that much in common.”

“Well, now you apparently have someone who wants you dead.” Ken was sure he could have thought up something more tactful, if he tried, but this wasn’t the time for that.

“...I’m not sure I should really use that as a conversation topic, though.”

Ren adjusted his glasses. “You could just… show up at the shop… or something. See about getting a new… well, maybe not a new scarf…”

Yukiko blinked. “...What’s wrong with scarves?”

“...It doesn’t matter,” Ken spoke up, certain that this wasn’t the time to go into the room that Yamano Mayumi might or might not have died in, given a general lack of conclusive evidence. “But… you know where the shop is, and you know Kanji-san. So if he hasn’t been taken yet, we could visit him and give him a warning, or something.” While he didn’t doubt that Kanji would be resilient if faced with the other world, that didn’t mean it was something he should have had to experience.

“I… think I could do that. But would we all go together, or…?” It looked like they would be paying a visit to Tatsumi Textiles.

* * *

  
  


Kanji was not at the textile shop for their arrival. Ken and Ren held back while Yukiko talked to his mother, investigating the area inside the store.

Ken was poking around a section of armbands that, while not quite the same as the ones SEES had, still looked nice enough to merit his consideration. “Hey, Ren-san, what do you think about- Ren-san?”

“That scarf… Ken-senpai, doesn’t it look familiar to you?”

It took a few seconds for him to identify the object he was being pointed at, but now that Ren mentioned it. “...That… it was in that room, wasn’t it?” Or, at least, something like it had been. He hadn’t been looking at it too closely. It just struck too close to home.

“I think so. Maybe that’s why…?” Ren made a wild gesture that would take an immensely large leap of logic to connect it to the Midnight Channel.

Thankfully, Ken had lived with Junpei, and was more than familiar with translating confused flailing. “I guess we can’t rule it out. But we need more information before deciding anything.”

“What are you boys talking about over there?” Tatsumi-san asked, her face betraying nothing but her own curiosity.

“Um… nothing, really. We were just looking around.” It was a lie, but one that didn’t let an adult know that two kids and a teenager were currently investigating a murder case. “Say… how much are the armbands?”

They weren’t quite the same as the ones held by SEES, and likely it would always be the glasses that carried that sort of meaning, but one of them had a nice color, and for the time being, that would just have to be enough.

* * *

  
  


They encountered Kanji just outside the shop, having seen him saying goodbye to someone that Ken found vaguely familiar, but couldn’t place why, even considering where he’d last seen that particular shade of blue. That seemed to be a reoccurring thing with him.

“Kanji-san! We were looking for you!” Ken decided to ignore any and all weirdness from the time being in order to strike up a conversation. “...Who were you talking to just now?”

“...I dunno. Just some guy, I guess. ...Wait, why are you asking?” He tensed up, similarly to Junpei when he was caught straying from his homework.

“No reason. It just… seemed a bit strange, that’s all.” After all, it wasn’t everyday that someone who looked like a mini-Minato showed up, albeit one who left Ken very confused as to what their gender was- everyone else seemed to be assuming male, but Kala-Nemi kept insisting otherwise. This, also, was something he was choosing to ignore for now.

“What? Are you saying I’m strange?” Ren and Yukiko shivered and backed away.

“A-actually, I was thinking more about… that person…” One of these days, Ken needed to get better at talking to people. “You’re actually… one of the more familiar parts of Inaba…” Which, come to think of it, probably said something. “Anyway, we- we wanted to talk to you about something.”

“...What is it?” Kanji did not seem particularly interested in conversation anymore. This probably wasn’t the time to start talking about how someone may or may not have wanted to murder him.

“It’s… if anything happens that you can’t explain… you can tell us about it.” This wasn’t anywhere near good enough, but… maybe it was the best that Ken could do, at the moment. “Try and be careful, all right? Not every problem can be beaten as easy as that biker gang.”

It was hard to tell whether Kanji was taking his words to heart or not, but Ken decided not to worry for the time being. If there was a problem, it would become apparent later. That was how this sort of thing worked, in his experience.

When he turned around, Ren and Yukiko had disappeared. He wasn’t sure whether to be disappointed by this or not.

* * *

  
  


Ren and Yukiko had awkwardly sidled away from the conversation the first chance they got. This was partly because Kanji unnerved them, and partly because they didn’t really have anything to add.

“I’m surprised Amada-kun can handle Kanji-kun so well,” Yukiko remarked. Ren shrugged.

“I mean… When his friends came to visit, I only really talked to Shiomi-san, but Sanada-san had a similar sort of feeling to him.”

“...Really? I would have thought he was more similar to Aragaki-san.”

“Him, too, maybe, but Sanada-san’s the one I picked up on. He and Kanji-san are both…” He paused, because explaining the major Arcana and Social Links was one of those things he was nowhere near qualified for, as even Igor’s simplest explanation left him confused about a few things. “...I think that, if Kanji-san had a Persona, the two of them would have similar powers.”

Yukiko purchased yet another drink from the vending machine. It would probably look strange to anyone else, their attempt at gaining a monopoly on soft drinks and various snack items. “Maybe, but Tadakatsu and I have similar powers, and I don’t see you comparing the two of us.”

“Well, first of all, his name is Koromaru…” Ren got the feeling that this was a lost cause. “And, well, Koro-chan’s a dog. And his powers are also a lot like mine, so…” Now it felt like he was just dodging the subject. Which, actually… “You know, Amagi-san, I never… asked you how you’ve been doing since- since you got your powers. If anything’s changed for you.”

“That… I’ve actually been thinking about things a lot. How I’ve always been depending on Chie, and as reliable as she is… it might be a bit much for her.”

“So, you’re going to try and… stand up for yourself more?” That was where this conversation seemed to be leading, right? He wasn’t sure.

She nodded. “And it’s not just Chie. Everyone else has helped me, too. Even you, Amamiya-kun… you and Amada-kun saved me, and I’m still not quite sure how to repay that.” That, despite how she’d gone as far as giving them weapons they’d have never been able to obtain otherwise.

“Well, the knives were a good start.” Ren wondered why he even bothered opening his mouth sometimes. “And... you said you’d be fighting with us, so… we’ll be counting on you.”

“...Thank you, Amamiya-kun. Still… I’ve been thinking about learning to cook, so I’ll have something I can do myself. Maybe, once I’ve made something, you could try it sometime.”

Ren nodded along, because he didn’t see any potential problems with that, and his mind opened to the first whispers of the Priestess Arcana.

* * *

  
  


“So… what have you been doing after school?” Ken glanced up at his uncle, who seemed to be reaching for anything they could possibly talk about. “Are you still spending time with Amamiya?”

“That’s right. We’ve also made friends with Amagi-san- that girl who was on TV. She’s nice, but also…” He was more than a little disconcerted by someone who could perfectly conceal a large number of weapons on her person at all times, including weapons that really weren’t conducive to stealth. “I think she’s got a lot on her mind.”

“Just about everyone does, what with the murders and all…” He trailed off. “...Forget about that. Just… Be careful around Amagi.”

“...Why? She didn’t do anything wrong.” The worst she did was go missing for a day at an admittedly really bad time, and even that left her tired enough to miss school for a while. “She hasn’t done anything but help.”

And also denying her Shadow, but Ken wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have done the same, if their positions had been reversed. He’d made so many mistakes, it would be a surprise if he didn’t have them thrown back at him, or if he could handle them perfectly well.

His uncle looked distinctly uncomfortable now. “That is… you should be spending more time with kids your own age.”

He’d heard that a lot when he was living with SEES, too. Like it was his fault that the people who were most like him were all older than him.

“I have Ren-san. And the other kids at school don’t seem to want to talk to me that much…” Admittedly, he hadn’t really been trying, at first, but he was busy, and once he finally had time, they’d all formed opinions about him already. He could accept when something might have been a lost cause. “But Amagi-san does want to talk to me, so I’m going to talk to her, too.”

It wasn’t like his uncle could stop him, when he wasn’t around enough to do so. Something that he, too, seemed to recognize, as he didn’t push the matter.

Just another night in the Dojima household.

* * *

  
  


As soon as the Midnight Channel shut off, Ken received a text.

_ Amagi Yukiko: I really don’t think you and Amamiya-kun should be watching the Midnight Channel. _

All things considered, it was hard to disagree.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, though, what's the point of having a character visit another game if they aren't eventually left disoriented by subconscious memories of Persona Q?
> 
> Yosuke's great, but it turns out that things go smoother when he isn't there to open his mouth. You can probably say something similar about Chie, except she shows up more often since Yukiko's still there.


	27. In Which A Sauna Is Discovered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanji has been thrown into a television, necessitating a rescue.
> 
> It's... not really off to a great start.

Transporting weapons through Junes was as simple as ever. Ken wondered if maybe he should have been concerned about that, but shrugged it off. Whatever the reason for this incredible lack of security, it was definitely helpful.

“So… we know that Kanji-san is... definitely inside the TV,” Ren didn’t look to be entirely comfortable with this statement, and it wasn’t very hard to see why.

Ken and Yukiko nodded. Ken thought about adding something, but wasn’t able to come up with anything that wouldn’t likely make the situation worse.

“I suppose that means we have to go in after him.” Yukiko stared at the television, twirling a fan. It wasn’t a type of weapon Ken had seen anyone use before, but he had to admit it suited her. “Even so…”

“We already saw his Midnight Channel, Amagi-san,” He pointed out. “We know what we’re getting into. ...Also, with all that steam and the fog, I think we’d have to worry more about getting heat stroke than seeing something we shouldn’t.” Except, of course, for the two fire users, for whom heat stroke was a distant worry at most. Lucky them.

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed, tapping his nose to the television.

“See? Koromaru has the right idea.” If there was one thing he’d learned from his time as a Persona User, it was that people didn’t tend to like being outdone by the dog. “Are you all ready to go?”

Koromaru barked again and wriggled his way through the television. This was probably going to become a normal thing with them.

At least that made something about this whole mess predictable.

* * *

  
  


Today, it seemed that Teddie had decided to finally put away the skates. Ren couldn’t help but be relieved, as there was only so many times he could put up with being bowled over by an excited, happy little bear.

“Kenny! Renren! Yuki-chan! Someone else got thrown in!” It was hard to tell whether his face had more fear or excitement in it, even with the relatively clear view afforded by his glasses.

“We know that,” Yukiko replied, quietly. She was wearing the gag glasses this time, but didn’t make much of a big deal out of it. “Tatsumi Kanji, from the class below mine. Could you find him for us, please?”

Teddie slowly shifted from side to side. “Hm… Kanji… Kanji…” He sniffed the air a few times, tried turning around, and narrowly avoided falling over himself. “Hm… I think I’m getting something, but… I can’t tell where the smell is coming from! But maybe if I knew a bit more about him...”

...Well, Ren had already fought a giant bird caused by Yukiko’s personal issues, he supposed that this wasn’t that far off. “He beat up a biker gang once,” He offered.

“That’s a little better… but I still can’t quite place it!”

“He’s… easily embarrassed, I think,” Ken added. “He’s not going to be happy with me for sharing this, but… I saw him spending time with some stray cats by the river, once. Despite how nice he is… he looks and acts scary. Maybe it’s because of that.”

Teddie nodded along to Ken’s words, his nose twitching. “I see… I think I have it! It’s… This way!” He pointed, but for once, did not march off ahead of the rest of them.

Maybe he was learning. Or maybe he just didn’t want to trip over any more cables that were randomly lying around.

It probably didn’t matter. It added up to the same thing, either way.

* * *

  
  


As soon as they arrived at the… location… from the Midnight Channel, Ken’s glasses began to fog up, surprising him not one bit.

“You know, Teddie, I’ve been wondering something,” Yukiko began, not looking at all motivated to enter the structure filled with Shadows. “You don’t need glasses like the rest of us, right?”

“Nuh-uh! My vision is bearrific, fog or no fog! ...I might have some trouble seeing in there, though. This steam’s even clogging up my nose...” That was the opposite of what normally happened when dealing with large amounts of steam, but Ken supposed things were probably different in this world. Besides which, nobody really expected the Shadow to conform to the rules of natural biology. Likely, Teddie’s physiology would always be a mystery.

“I guess that’s not really a surprise,” Ren commented. “Teddie’s from here, after all, so of course he should be able to see things. Are we… going to go in, now?”

They all looked apprehensively to the entrance to an area filled with Shadows and plagued with low visibility. Ken nodded.

“It’s that or we leave Kanji-san here. Just… we have everything we need, right? I know I brought my stuff, but…” It was important that none of them had forgotten anything. Or ‘forgotten,’ for the sake of not having to go inside sooner than was strictly necessary.

“Well, we got lots of drinks from the vending machines, as much food as we can carry…” Ren listed out, counting each thing on his hands. “We decided that, since so many of us can use Dia, we didn’t need as many things that were strictly medicine… and we have items that can fill in for ice or wind damage since I can still only use one of those at a time.”

This did, admittedly, sound a lot more structured than how SEES had sorted things out, but then, SEES had had three people with some amount of say over how they were supplied, each with fairly different priorities, and most of the items they used came from a giant tower with a randomized daily selection. To the very end, there had been arguments about equipment and budgeting. It would have been enough to make Ken feel sorry about all the stolen Revival Beads, if he hadn’t known that Kotone and Mitsuru were intentionally making room in their budgets for him, while Minato had been trying to phase out item-based healing entirely.

The key word there, of course, being try. He was very much outnumbered in the argument of whether or not to give up and turn back just because the dedicated healers were a bit tired.

“And of course we all have our weapons,” Yukiko finished, twirling the fan in her hands and watching some of the steam blow away. “I… couldn’t find any armor that wouldn’t draw attention, though… I hope that won’t be too much of a problem.”

Right. While there were plenty of things that could apparently be done without drawing attention in the department store, wearing obvious battle armor probably wouldn’t be one of them.

“We can… probably find stuff in chests later. Also keep track of what uses what spells. Teddie, can you handle that?” There was a squeak as Teddie leapt to attention.

“Of course! I’ll sniff out all their magic and weaknesses!” He was by far the most enthusiastic person here. Likely, this was at least partially because Koromaru’s goggles had fogged up.

Whatever the reason, it was nice that at least one of them was enthusiastic about this.

* * *

  
  


It turned out that there were many, many downsides to fighting in this environment.

The first, and most obvious, was the fact that it was nearly impossible to see. The steam kept everyone’s glasses from working properly, and if they were removed for cleaning, that just added the actual fog and the unnatural tiredness that came with it.

Of course, it still wasn’t as bad as the Dark Hour, but Ken was pretty sure that was just because, this time, he wasn’t missing out on sleep to fight Shadows. Also maybe due to being a little older than he’d been back then. Something like that.

Second was the heat. All of the drinks, all of the ice that had been brought along had been taken for the sake of being able to fight, to not rely on Ren of all of their ice magic, to be able to last just a bit longer.

Now, Ken and Ren were using them to avoid passing out from the heat. This was probably a bad sign for the rest of the day.

Koromaru and Yukiko, being heat-resistant, had no such issues. Ken was starting to wonder if there were any items around that would simulate the effect of Red Wall.

And then there was the time that Teddie tripped over a large Shadow that looked like a rock, did not suffer quite so easily under their teamwork as the rest, came with a large number of friends, and went down to a static shock.

As Ken could only use lightning magic on one foe at a time, it being very much not his specialty, the fight dragged out longer than anyone would have thought.

So from the very start, this had not been showing signs of being a good day.

And then Kanji’s Shadow showed up. He didn’t seem to be very impressed by the people who were intruding on his domain.

“Now, what do we have here? Children? In this place? This is a place for adults, not… children.”

Ken was starting to notice a theme with the places he was visiting in order to rescue people.

He really, really didn’t like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In fairness, that section of the TV World really isn't child-safe.


	28. In Which The Children Flirt With Heat Stroke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Really, what else do you expect to happen in a sauna?

During the next few fights, Ken was incredibly focused. Pesces were obliterated, Cupids torn apart. A Gigas was electrocuted, a Beast viciously speared.

Watching this all, Ren found it to be incredibly unnerving. “Um… Senpai? Are you all right?”

“I’m just fine.” A new group of Shadows noticed them, only to be enveloped in light that was blinding even when choked out by fog and steam.

Despite the heat, Teddie shivered. “Kenny’s been acting really serious…” He whimpered. “And his magic’s way too strong, too!”

“Amada-kun, stop it,” Yukiko scolded. “You’re scaring Teddie.”

This gave him pause. “I… Really?” He stopped, and rubbed at his glasses. Ren wasn’t sure whether it worked or not, he’d resigned himself to traversing this place blind. “I’m… sorry, about that. I didn’t mean to- to make anyone nervous, or anything.”

“That’s fine!” As soon as Kala-Nemi vanished, the bear was back to his cheerful self.

“Would you like to tell us what’s wrong?” Yukiko asked. “Just so it doesn’t happen again?”

Ken shrugged, and picked up some of the money that the Shadows had dropped. As it was his magic that had removed them from existence with extreme prejudice, nobody tried to get in his way for it. “It’s… I know this isn’t a place for kids.” One would hope he’d picked that up by now.

Ren blinked. “Really? Then why are you so upset by it?”

He received a shrug in return “I mean… it’s not the normal reason they tell me this kind of thing. So it’s… not as bad as it could be. But that’s the second Shadow that’s said this kind of thing, and that’s really two Shadows too many. But… maybe Kanji-san’s just worried about us.”

“Can Shadows worry about people?” Ren didn’t think he’d seen much to suggest it, unless…

Ken glanced at Teddie, before looking away again just as quickly. “...I don’t see why not. If it’s smart enough to talk, then it’s smart enough to care about people. Koromaru cares even though he can’t really talk to anyone who’s not… particularly good at reading people.”

“Arf!” Koromaru joined in, tail wagging. He didn’t try moving forward, but that might have just been due to the steam making it hard for him to see.

...Actually, thinking about it, maybe Koromaru would have been able to see better without the goggles, at the moment. If only due to being unable to wipe them off.

If he seemed to be having trouble getting around at any point, Ren thought he might bring it up. After all, they were already at a disadvantage. No need to make it any worse.

* * *

  
  


It shouldn’t have been any real surprise when they encountered the locked door. After all, there’d been one in the castle, as well, in a twisting corridor with a predilection for teleportation. Compared to that, a regular door with a simple lock wasn’t that big of a deal.

“What do you want to bet the stairs are behind here?” Ren asked.

“I mean, it is the only door that’s been locked so far,” Ken replied. Already, it was a lot less annoying than the castle had been, but that was mostly due to not getting warped every time they approached a door and constantly having to backtrack.

“...We just need to find the key, then,” Yukiko stated, as though it was that simple. Then again, she hadn’t had to walk through her Shadow’s distorted hallways.

As Ken silently resigned himself to looking through every door on the floor, Ren turned to Teddie. “The last time this happened, we had to get a key from something Amagi-san’s Shadow had called in. Do you think you can find Kanji-san’s Shadow around here?”

“Let me check. Hrm…” Teddie paced around, loudly sniffing the air. “This steam isn’t great for my nose, but… He’s somewhere on this floor.”

This was, obviously, less than helpful. “...Well, thank you for trying.”

“You’re welcome!” He grinned back, either oblivious to the lack of helpfulness, or pretending to be. “If I keep sniffing things out, maybe my nose will be less stuffy!”

Well, he was free to try. At the very least, he was doing well at keeping them from opening boxes full of Shadows, even if they weren’t accompanied by rattling chains and an acute awareness of one’s own mortality. Less getting attacked while looking for supplies was always good.

Now, if only that would help them to find Kanji’s Shadow…

* * *

  
  


Tracking down Shadow Kanji was, fortunately, no more difficult than just walking through the place and throwing open all the doors.

Sadly, there were a lot of doors to go through.

“Maybe… we should take a break after this,” Ren gasped out. “Not to… leave this world, or anything, just… to cool down a little bit.

Ken found it hard to disagree. It would be nice, to not feel constantly choked by the moisture in the air, all while the heat sapped away all energy from his body.

“But would we be able to get back to this floor?” He asked. “Maybe we could just find an enemy that uses Bufu… if there are any here.” He wouldn’t be surprised if there weren’t. With this heat… if Mitsuru were there, she’d probably have melted by now.

Teddie groaned. “I wish I could take off my fur…”

“It is getting a little hot,” Yukiko finally admitted, after walking through a boiling sauna for well over an hour. “I can keep myself cool with my fan, though.” What Ken wouldn’t give to have Yukari there… Well, if he could guarantee she wouldn’t freak out immediately after seeing what this place was, anyway.

...Okay, so maybe it was better that she wasn’t around.

“Still…” It was hard to see the door. His glasses weren’t actually helping right now… “The other Kanji-san should be just past here, right? And… there’s probably going to be a fight.”

“Only one way to find out,” Ren replied, opening the door.

They piled into the small room, and there, as suspected, was the Kanji who wore very little clothing and stared at them through the fog and steam with golden eyes.

He did not seem very pleased to see them. “Now, really, I thought I told you to leave. This isn’t a place for children.”

“So we noticed.” Ken wasn’t really sure why he bothered anymore. “We… sort of need to bring Kanji-san back home, though.”

“...I guess I’m going to have to call for security…” And, oh, it was one of those Shadows.

At least the upcoming fight was bound to be fairly straightforward.

* * *

  
  


It had, in fact, started out as an actual fight. Yukiko had held back to focus on healing, Teddie was in general nervous about the levels of power being thrown around, and their opponent wasn’t something that Ken could just Hamaon away. He’d tried.

When things started, they had actually been somewhat tense. Since then, however…

“Tarukaja,” The Shadow snarled out, glaring at Ren. It was the one word that it seemed to be able to speak, though that was still one more than Ken would have expected from anything that wasn’t Teddie… or Ryoji, back when he had been around. Or someone’s personal Shadow, but those were clearly different from the regular kind.

“Tarunda,” Ren responded, removing the effects of the spell for the fourth time in a row.

“Tarukaja.”

“Tarunda.”

“Tarukaja!”

“Tarunda!”

“...Shouldn’t we be doing something?” Yukiko asked, as the game of magical back-and-forth continued to show no signs of abating.

“Probably,” Ken agreed. “Just let me finish my lemonade, first.” It was a good drink, it gave back some of his magical energy, and most importantly, it cooled him down.

“I think Renren’s doing just fine,” Teddie opined. “Though… I guess things aren’t really getting anywhere, either… the Shadow just puts the spell right back.”

Yukiko sighed. “I’ll toss him some Soul Drops…”

Ken, meanwhile, had started contemplating whether it would be better to obliterate this Shadow with Ziodyne, Psiodyne, or Hamaon. He thought there was a pretty good chance that they’d all work, but he wanted to be efficient.

* * *

  
  


The Shadow was, eventually, defeated. Eventually, in this case, meaning that Koromaru had defeated it while it and Ren were still having their ridiculous Taru-shouting contest.

At that point, Ken had reached the bottom of his can of lemonade. He tried not to be too disappointed about that.

“You could have helped sooner…” Ren mumbled, tying the key onto a string with two others on it, one of them the glass key that they’d picked up in the castle and proceeded to open all the doors with. Hopefully, they wouldn’t need it again, but Ken supposed there was merit in the idea of keeping it on hand all the time, just in case.

The other key was also somewhat familiar, but he was pretty sure that one was just a Wild Card thing. That tended to be the case when Ren, Minato, or Kotone did something inexplicably unexplainable.

“...Would you like some soda to cool down with?” Eventually, they’d just stuck the canned drinks with the ice cubes that steadfastly refused to melt, and so far, it had been working really well.

“Please.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That does, in fact, tend to be my contribution to that boss fight. It's not the fastest way of dealing with it, probably, but it works.


	29. In Which A Few Different Battles Happen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also nobody can really see anything. It's very annoying.

Sadly, they had yet to find anything to improve heat resistance. Ren had eventually accepted defeat and changed his Persona to one that was immune to fire for the time being, leaving him one of the best-off members of the group. When Ken realized what he’d done, he grumbled for a while about how using the power of the Wild Card like that was cheating.

Ren liked to think that his friend was just jealous. After all, he was the only one that didn’t currently have some level of heat resistance.

As they explored yet another floor of something that had absolutely no business possessing multiple floors, a golden shape loomed out at them from the mist.

Ken pulled to a stop, and held out his arms to halt the others. “Do you see that?” He asked, voice tinged with excitement. “That’s a Rare Shadow. Ren-san, remember when we saw one a lot like it in the castle?”

He nodded, as it hadn’t been the easiest thing to forget. “It ran away from us, and we lost it when the warps started to happen.” Ken had seemed really upset when it happened. “It was the only one like it in the castle.”

“Right. Well, Rare Shadows are really strong, and will try their hardest to get away from us. But if we can beat them, they’ll literally explode into cash. And this time, we probably don’t even have to worry about the Reaper showing up. But we need to be careful about this, or else it could get away.” Ren supposed it went without saying that none of them wanted that. There wasn’t much purchasing of quality supplies that could be done on a kid’s allowance.

“A-are you sure about this?” Teddie asked, much more quietly than usual. “It smells really strong!” He stood near-completely still as though he were aware of how much his feet could squeak, and how incredibly loud it could be.

“I’m sure,” Ken replied. “We just need to find its weakness, that’s all.”

While this all sounded very easy, it was a fair bit more difficult in practice, what with how the hand, being a giant hand, had a tendency for slapping people.

They did eventually succeed, though, and it turned out that Ken was right- the golden hand exploded into more money than Ren knew what to do with, aside from maybe paying the fox for another bundle of leaves. As useful as they were, they were also very expensive.

They all split the money, stuffed it into their pockets, and then kept going.

* * *

  
  


Ken wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten into this situation.

...Okay, that was a lie. Ken knew exactly how he’d gotten into this situation. When they’d found Kanji, he and his Shadow had almost gotten to the point of having a fistfight, and things had all just gone downhill from there.

Honestly, he’d been a bit more concerned at the time by how they were running out of ice cubes. If they ever came back- and he was seriously hoping that they wouldn’t- Ren would probably end up using a lot of Bufu so that nobody overheated.

Also, maybe they’d bring along something that would help them have proper vision for more than five minutes at a time, if they were lucky. That would also be very important to have.

On a more relevant note, however, he was sort of glad that he couldn’t see all that well at the moment. The Midnight Channel had been bad enough, and he was giving serious consideration to Yukiko’s suggestion that he just not watch it anymore. If only because a pattern seemed to be developing, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to witness it keep going.

Still, the most important part of this was that Kanji hadn’t been happy with his Shadow, and now there was lightning being thrown everywhere. There were also a couple of other Shadows around, which, with the current state of his glasses, were vaguely dissimilar blurs but which were doing much less throwing of lightning bolts than Shadow Kanji.

Not that this was saying much. Kanji’s Shadow was currently very heavy on the lightning bolts, about as much as Yukiko’s had been with the fire. Maybe Ken’s earlier comparisons of Kanji to Akihiko hadn’t been entirely off-base…

Teddie had taken one look at the brewing storm and decided to keep a safe distance. He seemed oddly terrified of it, but then, he’d never appeared very comfortable with lightning.

While Kanji’s Shadows was certainly a powerful opponent, Ken thought that maybe it would be better just to deal with the helpers first, if only because it wasn’t inconceivable that one of them might have been able to Diarahan or something.

“Do the three of you think you can handle Kanji’s Shadow without me?” He asked. “I’m going to try and get rid of the other two.” Or distract them, but he really hoped he wouldn’t be playing bait. That tended to end painfully. Having Diarahan didn’t mean that pain didn’t hurt.

“All by yourself?” Yukiko sounded skeptical, but it was hard to tell for sure when nobody could see anything. “Are you sure? There’s two of them, and just one of you.” Okay, that was fair.

“I’m sure,” He replied. “I’ve been doing this a lot longer than you, remember?” He wouldn’t go so far as to say he knew what he was doing, but he was probably as close to it as it was possible to get, when it came to Shadows.

Yukiko returned most of her attention to lighting Shadow Kanji on fire, so Ken assumed that she was properly convinced. Still… he would have liked it if she’d thrown some Maragi around, too, if one of the backup Shadows didn’t obviously and obnoxiously absorb fire.

Now, for the most difficult and important part of all of this… figuring out whether Shadows could be sufficiently distracted by bright, flashing lights when nobody could really see anything.

* * *

  
  


Shadows could, in fact, be sufficiently distracted by bright, flashing lights when nobody could really see anything. Ren was a bit distracted, too, but that was more due to his natural aversion to anything Kouha-related than anything else.

Also the fact that he could barely see anything else, but he’d mostly gotten used to that part.

Ren ducked out of the way of a crashing metal symbol, returning his focus to the fight at hand. He was getting better at changing Personas in the middle of combat, allowing lightning to crack and fizzle out on his body with the support of Oberon, moving back to Arsene for a quick strike, Jack Frost rising up for little more than the moment needed to temporarily support Ken with a wave of ice. To do battle, as a Wild Card, was to be constantly changing, and Ren was beginning to find a set of patterns that suited him.

He’d also managed to become Shadow Kanji’s main target by virtue of being extremely irritating, but that much he wasn’t about to mention to anyone.

Ken successfully exploded the… Ren was pretty sure that was the one which had been weak to ice. “Koromaru! Amagi-san!” He turned to them, grinning as he prepared to give his order. “Maragi.”

...Of course, he’d also been distracted enough to be immediately bowled over by metal that had spent its entire existence in a hot sauna, but that was besides the point.

* * *

  
  


Kanji accepting his Shadow had been about as much of a fight as the initial denial was. Ken wanted to say that was a surprise, but… it really wasn’t.

...Also, Kanji appeared to be suffering from major heat stroke, to the surprise of nobody. Goho-Ms were used, and cold drinks were given. Hopefully, they wouldn’t have to visit the hospital and explain how someone could be that badly off when summer was still quite a ways away.

“...Don’t you think actual water might be better?” Yukiko asked, clearing the last of the steam from her glasses. “...I mean, if it comes from the sauna, we might want Amamiya-kun to cool it down first, but…”

“...Let’s wait until we can get him something that doesn’t come from a world filled with Shadows.” Ken didn’t think it would be any less safe to drink than the chewing gum in the treasure chests was edible, but it was best to be safe.

“Yeah, I ain’t drinking anything from that place,” Kanji agreed, glaring at the opening that they were still sitting near, that still had steam drifting out of it. “Never want to go back, either.”

“I believe we all agree on this,” Yukiko nodded. “Now shut up and rehydrate.” That was the most scathing tone Ken had ever heard from her.

Kanji nodded, took another gulp of the drink he’d been given, and then paused. “Um… Yukiko-senpai? What the- the heck are you wearing?”

Ken sighed. “I already know that word, too.”

“...I mean, even if you weren’t kids, Ma says I shouldn’t swear as much…”

Ren looked like he was silently counting the minutes until Kanji was at least capable of getting back to Junes. Ken found himself doing the same.

At least they probably wouldn’t have to take him to the hospital.

It was a shame about the people who’d probably be wanting to use the Junes drinking fountains, though.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...This part of Kanji's character arc probably wouldn't change much with or without Ken there, with the possible exception of him censoring himself a bit more, so there's no real point in rehashing it.
> 
> I do, however, maintain that one of the major bosses of this dungeon should have been the concept of heat stroke. (On a particularly relaxed playthrough, you can leave Kanji in there for weeks. How is he still alive?)


	30. In Which Ken Spends Time With Family

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken gets along well with Nanako. She's probably the person he gets along with best, really...
> 
> Yukiko also decides to try something new.

They did not, in fact, have to take Kanji to the hospital, which was a relief because Ken wasn’t sure he could come up with a good excuse for that even when he himself wasn’t tired and still slightly dehydrated.

“Oh! Welcome home, Big Bro!” Nanako greeted him as he walked through the door, spear hidden behind his back for the time being. If she asked, he’d tell her it was a fancy walking stick. Fortunately, she didn’t ask. “Do you know if Dad’s going to be back soon?”

He shook his head. “I haven’t heard anything about that today, but I haven’t had my phone on me, so…” He’d been aware that, if he brought it to a place like that, there was a good chance it would get fried. And it wasn’t like there’d been a good reason to bring it- inside of a television didn’t even get cell service!

“Oh…” She looked away, even as Koromaru bounded over to her for pets. “...Hey, Koro-chan.”

Ken surreptitiously ducked into his room to put his spear away, and to check his phone. Three missed calls, none of which were from his uncle. He’d probably respond to them later, once he’d had another glass of water.

When he got back downstairs, Nanako was rustling through the fridge. “...We’re out of pickled radish,” She said sadly. “Dad really likes it.”

“We can go get some tomorrow,” Ken offered. “I… don’t think we have the time to go today.” Even if they did, he wasn’t sure he wanted to go back to Junes until they forgot about the large line his group had made in front of the drinking fountains. It was a wonder nobody had said anything about the presence of the weapons or Koromaru.

“Right. They… said it’s dangerous out.” Exactly. While Ken was sure he wouldn’t be in any danger, it’d just be irresponsible to expose Nanako to this sort of thing. He hadn’t been directly exposed to anything Shadow-related until he was nine, and that wasn’t exactly by choice.

“Yeah. You don’t want your dad to worry, do you?”

“...It’d be fine, though,” She mumbled. “I’ve got you to protect me.” Ken really, really hoped that didn’t mean she’d noticed he had a spear.

“And you won’t need protection if we all stay inside the house. Anyway, what food do we actually have? We’ll see if we can make something nice for dinner.” Internet recipes and having the likes of Shinjiro on speed-dial had to be good for something, right?

At the very least, he was sure they could avoid setting fire to the kitchen.

* * *

  
  


Ken had mixed feelings about Adachi. On one hand, he was his uncle’s partner at work, and therefore someone to be respected, and on the surface, he seemed perfectly nice. On the other hand, something about him caused Kala-Nemi to be uncomfortable, which tended not to mean good things about a person.

Also, he called him ‘Ken-chan.’ That was incredibly annoying, even if he wasn’t sure it would be worth the effort of telling him to stop enough times to make it stick.

Whatever Ken’s feelings about Adachi were, however, the man was visiting tonight, for reasons that Ken had no idea of and didn’t particularly care about. Nanako seemed to like him, so that was an extra reason to be polite, as if he didn’t have enough already.

“So, Ken-chan…” And so it began. “Have you started getting tired of this quiet little country town yet? Probably a lot less exciting than where you’re from.”

“I don’t know. With the friends I’ve made, and what I’ve been doing with them, it… almost feels like I never left Iwatodai.” Except if he were still in Iwatodai, he’d at least be able to tell the people he was living with about the sort of things he did during the day.

As it was, his family had no clue. And, honestly, it was for the best that it stayed that way.

Adachi blinked rapidly. “Iwa-? Huh, I knew you were from a city, too, but…”

Nanako suddenly sat up straighter in her seat. “You’re from the same city as Big Bro?”

“Lived there my whole life before I came here. Nice enough place, long as you didn’t stay out too late at night.” This wasn’t the first time Ken had heard that description for a place, though Minato had been talking mainly about Gekkoukan. “Though… I guess that does explain…” Adachi trailed off without bothering to tell anyone what he had realized.

This was not the most awkward meal Ken had ever had. However, if he were to discount the ones that happened immediately after someone was released from the hospital, this one would certainly rank pretty far up there. It was just that there were a lot of meals to choose from.

Still, having found some sort of commonality with his uncle’s partner, he thought that this had actually gone pretty well, all things considered.

Now, if only he could figure out how to stop Adachi from calling him ‘Ken-chan’...

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: Fun fact. As long as things are sufficiently disconnected from physics, and cold drinks are available a person can spend up to twenty-four hours in a sauna without dying from heat stroke. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...Kid, what did you do? _

_ Amada Ken: Spent just about of my free time for the day rescuing a friend from town from a massive sauna. It was… interesting. _

He thought it was best not to go into detail on that. If only because he got the distinct feeling that Kanji would be upset if random people just happened to know about his Shadow.

Then again, if he’d had a Shadow, he probably wouldn’t want to talk about it, either, even if it was just the stuff from before he’d summoned Nemesis for the first time.

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Somehow, I doubt that was Satonaka. Care to tell me about them? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, he’s… a lot like you, actually. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...Good way or bad way? _

_ Amada Ken: Good way! Definitely! He also has a lightning-aligned Persona of the Emperor Arcana, so it’s sort of like if you and Akihiko-san were one person. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: That’s terrifying. Aki and I are idiots. _

It was very, very hard to deny that. If someone in SEES was doing something stupid, and it wasn’t Junpei, odds were it would be at least one of those two. Often both. Always with Kotone either trying to talk them down or enabling them.

Actually, that reminded him of something… even if he’d probably have been better off asking someone else about it.

_ Amada Ken: So, anyway, on an unrelated note, my uncle’s work partner really annoys me. How do you handle people who keep bothering you? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Well, both times it’s happened for me, I let them live with me because they don’t think I can be trusted to be on my own. _

_ Amada Ken: …Are they wrong, though? _

There was no answer. Ken was pretty sure he was meant to take that as a victory.

Even if he really wished that it wasn't one.

* * *

  
  


“I got the ingredients list you wanted.” Yukiko was doubtful that Chie had actually bothered to go to the internet for what she’d wanted to know, if only because the ‘ingredients list’ held several different kinds of meat, and she’d been planning on starting with a simple vegetable dish.

“...Are you sure this is accurate?” The addition of caramel and cocoa powder didn’t get her to bat an eye, but she was definitely skeptical about the high amounts of bacon.

“I’m sure! It’ll be delicious!” Well, if she was absolutely certain… “Why did you want this, anyway?”

“I’ve been… wanting to learn to cook.” Somehow, it was harder to tell this to the person she’d known her whole life than the boy who just happened to have a similar power. “And… well, do you remember Kanji-kun? From the textile shop? He’s been sick recently, so I thought this would help him feel better.” Or, at least, restore the energy that had been sapped away by the heat of the bathhouse. That was also important.

“Kanji-kun… he’s the one who was in a biker gang, right?”

“No, he’s the one that beat up a biker gang. He really doesn’t like when people get it wrong.” It hadn’t come up for her very often, but Ken insisted that it had seemed important to him. And, honestly, given how powerful his Shadow had been, it didn’t seem like a good idea to let anyone provoke him. For their own health, if nothing else.

“I see, then… still, for someone as strong as him, extra meat is important!” Yukiko would be more impressed by this if she didn’t realize that Chie’s constant talking about how meat made people stronger was purely in order to justify her favorite food being steak.

Still, with how enthused she was about this… “Would you like to try learning with me? I’m sure we’ll be able to figure this out better together than if we just tried on our own.” Worse, case, she could have Chie sit in a corner of the kitchen with a snack and everything would be just fine.

...That, or they’d set everything on fire without her even needing Konohana Sakuya to do so. That was also a distinct possibility.

* * *

  
  


They did not set Inaba on fire. However, the results of their attempt weren’t particularly edible, either. Yukiko found herself being banned from the kitchen for the next week.

Chie was not. Apparently, her only real mistake had been the addition of too much extra meat. And possibly mixing up caramelized onions and actual caramel.

...So maybe the biggest lesson to learn here was to not run their recipes through Google Translate… It was still progress!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's be honest, Adachi would press all of Ken's buttons without even trying.
> 
> And here we see the beginning of Mystery Food X. At least they actually were using a recipe this time... if a modified one that was already inaccurate. It could have been a lot worse.


	31. In Which Ken and Nanako Start A Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanako wants to get a good grade in science class. Ken wants free healing items. There really isn't any other way it can go.

It had been a while since Ren last went with Ken to Souzai Daigaku. The only time they’d gone together before had been just prior to the incident which led them to go on adventures inside of the TV.

Still, there they sat, munching on steak skewers as if they hadn’t dived into a mysterious world of murder and mists. “I don’t think I like my uncle’s partner very much,” Ken spoke up.

Ren tried not to be surprised by this sudden turn of conversation. “Why? What did he do?”

“Nothing, really…” Ken seemed uncomfortable admitting this, as though he didn’t want to be thought of as selfish just because an adult rubbed him the wrong way. “It’s just… something.”

Ren didn’t think he’d heard Ken at a loss for words before. “I'm assuming it's a bad thing?”

“Well, he sort of reminds me of one of my senpai. Junpei-san. Except Junpei-san’s less… whatever Adachi-san is. I can't really explain it.” Given how little information he was receiving from this, Ren was inclined to agree with him.

“Maybe you just respect him more, because he's your senpai?” He suggested.

“...Maybe. My senpai are definitely different from most people. And for more reasons than... just being Persona users. “They're the only ones who…”

“Who what?” Now Ren was curious. And many people would agree that Ren was very difficult to stop when he was curious.

Ken glanced away uncomfortably. “Well...Things weren't really that great when I met them. But even though I was a kid, they listened to me. They listened even when nobody else did. All the adults just- they kept saying that- that I was imagining things. And maybe it’s just that we were all Persona Users… but they still listened to me, when I talked about things a lot of people wouldn’t believe.” This was a bit more than Ren had been expecting to hear.

“It must have been hard. Being the only Persona Users around.”

“It could get pretty lonely sometimes,” He agreed. “But we all had each other, even when things started being… even more not great. And I guess that was the important thing. That I wasn't as alone as I thought I was.” Ken paused, turning to Ren with a slight smile on his face. “...Like now. Until stuff started happening, I thought Koromaru and I would be the only Persona Users in Inaba. And... now there’s you. Not just you, but Amagi-san and Kanji-san, too. I’m not alone.”

Somehow, Ren could feel Ken’s gratitude that there were other people like him in Inaba, and the Justice Social Link got stronger once more. Still…

“Aren’t you forgetting someone, though?” He spoke up. “He’d be beary sad if he thought he wasn’t your friend.”

“...I dunno. Aigis-san says I shouldn’t be making friends with strange Shadows…” Those words came incredibly easily for someone who was confirming something that had, until that moment, been little more than a vague suspicion. “But… Yeah. Teddie’s pretty great, too.”

The two of them passed the rest of the afternoon in companionable silence.

* * *

  
  


When Ken got home, there were a number of planters sitting on the counter. “Oh! Big Bro! Welcome back!” Nanako looked up from a large cluster of vegetable seedlings. “The grass project for science is going really well, so now we’re growing veggies, too!”

“Really? You’re growing all these?” That was a lot of seedlings… “Do we even have space for them? I mean, we’ve got a yard, but… I don’t know anything about gardening.”

“Maybe we could ask the neighbors for help. I know some of them have very pretty gardens. Or… maybe we should wait until Dad gets home.” She didn’t voice the fact that there was a decently-high chance that he wouldn’t be getting home until late that night, but it was, as always, heavily implied.

Ken didn’t want to think about that. “Do your seedlings come with instructions? Maybe… maybe if we work together, we can figure something out.” Worst case, he supposed they could always stick the vegetable seedlings in the fridge with Nanako’s grass project.

...Or, well, some of them. There really were a lot of seedlings.

Nanako’s eyes widened. “Really!? Thanks, Big Bro!”

“I-I’m still not sure it’ll go well…” He protested, still having genuinely no idea how to take care of vegetables. “I just… I think it could be worth trying.” Her smile didn’t dim at all.

“I’ll see if we have any shovels!” And there she went, rummaging through drawers that Ken couldn’t remember ever seeing open, or even being there in the first place.

...He supposed they were starting a garden. He still wasn’t sure how well it was going to go, but… fairly potent healing items he didn’t have to pay for. It would probably be worth it.

* * *

  
  


Ryotaro got home while the sun was setting to see his daughter and his nephew sitting in the yard, covered in dirt and trying to keep the dog from digging up a series of small plants.

“Hi, Dad!” Nanako, thankfully, did not run up to hug him. “Koro-chan, don’t hurt the veggies! I need them for school!” Ken managed to haul Koromaru out of the garden, at which point he curled up on his lap and closed his eyes.

“...I know you’re not asleep,” Ken mumbled, getting a whine in return. “You’re still going to have to take a bath. We all are.” He wasn’t wrong. For such a tidy-looking small garden, it really hadn’t done any favors to the children’s clothes and skin.

“...You’re growing a garden, huh?” Nanako nodded, her eyes bright with excitement.

“It’s a project for school. I’m going to grow the best veggies. Big Bro said he’d help!” The shining eyes, the enthusiasm, the neatly planted rows… it took Ryotaro back to another pair of children starting a school-mandated garden, back when he was Nanako’s age and the idea of his sister leaving for the city was nothing more than her own, distant dream.

Really, the biggest change about this picture was the dog. “That’s if we can keep Koromaru from digging them up first,” Ken pointed out. “No digging in the garden, Koromaru.” There was another whine. “...Come on, let’s go inside. You need a bath.”

...Something told Ryotaro that there was more than one reason, now, to suddenly move laundry day up just a bit. And that maybe it would be a good idea to figure out what happened to the vacuum cleaner, assuming it hadn’t fallen into the black hole of lost appliances.

...Okay, maybe it would be a good idea to go to Junes and get a new vacuum cleaner.

* * *

  
  


Yukiko, eventually, had been forced to admit that trying to make food for Kanji was something that her cooking skill was just not ready to accomplish. This wasn’t going to stop her from learning, of course, it was just a matter of time and an apparent lack of skill.

Ren listened to her worries more closely than Chie had, when she’d told her. “This means you just have to keep practicing and getting better, right?” He asked.

“I guess so,” She agreed, though it didn’t feel that easy. “Hm… do you think Teddie would like to taste the things I make, as a test?”

“That…” The boy trailed off as though thinking of the most tactful answer. “...I’m not sure he’s eaten enough, in the past, to… well, to be a very good judge. He might just think the food’s supposed to be like that, even if it really isn’t.” He did, admittedly, have a point. “Or… I guess you could just… make stuff like steak skewers, but that doesn’t…”

“It isn’t really what I’m looking for,” She agreed. It wasn’t that it was bad food, she just didn’t want to limit herself to things that could be purchased for two-hundred yet apiece from a street vendor. Among other things, that would be very boring. “Thank you for the advice, though, I’ll keep it in mind.” She probably wouldn’t.

“So…” Ren nervously adjusted his glasses. “Are you going to do anything else for Kanji-san? Or are we just… going to leave him alone until he’s all better?”

“...Do you think a lightning-patterned water bottle would be in good taste?”

Results were inconclusive. Yukiko wasn’t sure why she’d expected anything else.

* * *

  
  


Ken’s uncle was busy. This, he had started to realize, appeared to be the natural order of things. It wasn’t that he was never home- he did, at the very least, genuinely try to be physically present- but that he was always filling out papers from work, or reading the newspaper.

Recently, he’d been helping Ken and Nanako with the garden- or, at least, he’d been trying to- but there was still a distance there, a gap Ken had no idea of how to cross.

Then again… that left him in about the same position as Nanako.

“When is always, huh…” His uncle stared after where Nanako had closed her bedroom door behind her, proceeding to loudly lock it.

Ken wasn’t sure what to say. It was true that his uncle could stand to be home more, but on the other hand, that would make it a lot harder for him to do the things that needed to be done so that people didn’t end up hanging from telephone poles.

“She just… wants to spend time with you.” Was just another lonely kid, left to drift without anything to cling to. Maybe that was why she’d latched on to him, but… sometimes, he was barely able to keep his head above the surface as it was. “You know… as a family.”

His uncle glanced away. “...I’m not fit to be her family.”

Kala-Nemi flared, and Ken forced him down again. Not now. Not here. Later, he could find Teddie, and hunt for Shadows he could use to express these emotions away from people who could be hurt, but this just wasn’t the time or place for that.

“...Fit or not, you’re the only family we have.” He returned to his own room, not taking any particular care not to slam the door. Koromaru looked up at him, red eyes blinking wearily.

“...Sorry if I woke you up,” Ken whispered, slipping into bed and inviting the dog to jump beside him. “It’s… it’s been a long night.” Koromaru gave him a confused growl, but still curled up at his side.

Somehow, he didn’t think Kotone would be able to offer him very good advice about this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thinking about it... Dojima's Social Link really does press at a lot of Ken's sore spots. Add in the general plot of Persona 4, and... This can only go so well.


	32. In Which Kanji Receives A Visit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kanji is well enough to receive visitors. Therefore, he is immediately crowded by Persona Users.
> 
> ...Well, not just Persona Users, but there really are a lot of them.

It was agreed upon that they would all be visiting Kanji today. Ren wasn’t really sure how this was going to go, but he liked Kanji well enough, and it wasn’t inconceivable they’d eventually be fighting Shadows together, so being able to visit was important.

Ken brought along a small container filled with vegetables. “What are these?” Kanji asked.

“My cousin’s growing a garden for her science class,” He explained, passing around tiny tomatoes to everyone. “I’d… like for you to try them. And tell me what you think.”

Ren wasn’t sure vegetables were meant to grow this quickly, but he supposed there wasn’t much reason to turn down a free snack.

Just one bite of the tomato made his mind sharper, as if he hadn’t spent most of the afternoon idly doodling in class. “This is… really good. Sort of like gum, except…” Smaller. Fresher. More likely to squish in his pockets, but also less stopping to stick something he’d drained all the magic from onto the walls to the irritation of the local Shadow.

“I think it’s because they’re so fresh. Or… maybe because I was involved in growing them, and I have a Persona? It’s… still more than I would have thought. What do you think, Kanji-san?”

“‘s pretty good,” Kanji mumbled, reaching for another tomato. “Is it supposed to make Take-Mikazuchi act like that?”

Yukiko blinked. “Act like what?”

“I’m… not sure. I guess he has more energy? Or something?”

“That’s what I was hoping for,” Ken grinned. “I can’t take all of them, of course, because Nanako could still need them, and stuff, but they should be really helpful later.”

Yukiko nodded, looking pensive. “If they keep being like this after being cooked, maybe I could make meals for us at some point.”

Ken, Ren, and Kanji exchanged a glance. None of them seemed to know what to say- Ren had exactly no idea- but Kanji eventually spoke up. “...Let’s hold off on that for a bit, Senpai. Just till we’re sure you know how to cook stuff.”

Ren suddenly got the intense feeling he’d just been saved from some terrible fate.

* * *

  
  


A bit later, someone else stopped by, carrying a large number of books. Kanji glanced up at him. “Oh, hey, Naoki. Put the stuff on the table for now, okay?”

“All… right…” Naoki gave a confused glance at the other Persona Users, which Kanji supposed was fair. He wasn’t entirely sure what to think of the whole thing, either. He wasn’t particularly upset about having Take-Mikazuchi buzzing in his chest, but it could be distracting.

“Hello, Konishi-kun.” Yukiko gave a nervous sort of smile, which probably wasn’t helping the situation at all. “I… haven’t seen you around, in a while.” Kanji wondered if it was possible for her to get so nervous she’d literally burst into flame. With how weird everything else was, he wouldn’t have been overly surprised.

Naoki’s face was closed off. “That… you can tell me what you really think, Amagi-senpai.” And, okay, maybe it would have been less awkward if she did burst into flame.

Yukiko didn’t answer. Ren had now gone pale, and was picking at the tablecloth, staring at it as if it held all of the secrets to life. Kanji wasn’t sure what to do.

Ken glanced between all of them confusedly. “Is… is something the matter?”

...Right. He wasn’t from Inaba, no matter how quickly he’d seemed to settle in. And there really, really wasn’t a good way to explain to a twelve-year-old that someone’s sister had been murdered, even if the twelve-year-old was one of the most competent people investigating.

Naoki gave Ken an appraising look. “You… you’re new in town, aren’t you?”

Ken, like Ren, was now fiddling with the tablecloth, but he was still looking Naoki in the eye. “That’s right. I just moved here before school started, to live with my uncle. I’m Amada Ken. It’s nice to meet you.”

“...Konishi Naoki. You… may have heard my family name, before.” He turned his attention back to Kanji. “Do you know when you’re coming back to school?”

Kanji shrugged, because he honestly wasn’t sure, and there probably wasn’t a good way to say ‘after the fog’ that didn’t make him into a murder suspect. They already had Yukiko under extra scrutiny. No need for any more of them to be swept up into that sort of trouble. “Probably some time in the next week. Week after that, if I can’t make it.” It wasn’t going to go that long without raining.

Naoki nodded, and left without another word.

Somehow, he’d managed to create an atmosphere more awkward than the sauna had been.

“Amamiya, you okay?” Ren’s face had yet to return to its normal color.

“It-it’s fine,” He stammered out. “It’s just that, when Naoki-san came in, I remembered… well, I remembered first seeing the Midnight Channel, and that was…” He trailed off, again. “...It doesn’t matter. It’s not like… like I can tell him anything about it.”

That implied a lot of things, and Kanji was pretty sure he didn't want to go there. He supposed that, even after finding people that actually accepted him, there were some things that just didn’t need to be talked about. So they wouldn’t.

This still didn’t seem like the best way to do things, but at least they were getting somewhere.

* * *

  
  


The weather report said it was going to start raining later that week. Ken had almost expected it to take longer. “Back when I was in fifth grade, it just about never rained,” He explained to Ren. “Except for that one big typhoon… I don’t really remember much about it, though.”

“No rain? Really? Didn’t you live near a lot of water?”

“Yeah, I don’t really get it either…” He admitted. “I remember the people on the news were really worried, and it made the summer really hot. But… that’s about it.” He’d almost forgotten what rain felt like, until the spring after when it finally started raining again.

Even then, it still didn’t rain nearly as often as it did in Inaba. “I can’t really imagine a place being dry like that,” Ren stated, kicking a pebble down the street, where it clattered and fell into a gutter. “It’s always been rainy here, even if it only started being so foggy about half a year ago.”

That… didn’t exactly sound like a normal weather pattern. “Really? Just like that?”

He nodded. “Nobody’s really worried about it, though. According to the older people in town, this just happens sometimes. Though, I don’t think it’s happened before that I can remember, so…” So there was a decent chance this had something to do with the TV World.

“...I guess that makes sense, though. Teddie says his world used to be peaceful, and the Shadows mostly get aggressive when the fog lifts. And that… only really happens when it’s foggy here. I mean, it might not mean anything, but…” It was hard to claim coincidences with Shadows. “...Actually, that reminds me. I should take Teddie some more coloring stuff later. He’s almost filled up the entire book I gave him.” He seemed to enjoy coloring, and there wasn’t much reason to have a bored Shadow bear around, so why not?

“He has? I mean, I guess he doesn’t have a lot of other things to do…” Ren paused, as though thinking of something, before pushing his glasses back up onto his face. “Do you think he’d like some kind of puzzle book? That might last longer.”

Ken thought about it. At Junes, the puzzle books and coloring books were pretty close to each other… “I think that depends on if he knows how to read,” He finally decided. “I’m… not entirely sure on that part. It didn’t seem polite to ask.” He supposed they could take the time to explain the puzzles to him if it turned out that he couldn’t, though.

Still… it would mean that he didn’t have to buy so many markers. So maybe it was worth a shot.

“I’m not sure if I should bring him anything else,” Ren admitted. “After giving him those roller skates, I just got knocked over a lot…”

He supposed that not every gift could be a winner.

* * *

  
  


After Teddie had been given a few more activities, much to the bear’s delight, the time eventually came when, once again, the rain crashed down on the roof of the Dojima household.

Ken sat in his room, not particularly worried about the Midnight Channel. If Kanji ended up back in the sauna, he had a Goho-M, and Teddie claimed he was prepared to meet him halfway. As long as nothing went horribly wrong, they would all be fine.

No, tonight he would be worrying about something else entirely.

_ Amada Ken: Did we ever figure out what was up with the weather that year, or are we just assuming it was just unrelated weirdness? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: I’ve never actually looked into that, and at this point, it may be too late. Why are you asking? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, it didn’t really get foggy in Inaba until recently, and then dead bodies started showing up. There’s probably a connection somewhere, we just don’t have the time to look for it because we’re busy making sure no more dead bodies show up. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...Are you sure you don’t want me sending help? _

_ Amada Ken: It’ll be fine. All we really need to do is figure out who, besides me and Ren, started this school year as a Persona User. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: I can give you Yamagishi. It doesn’t sound like something that would take more than a weekend. _

He’d be lying if he said that he hadn’t considered it.

_ Amada Ken: If whoever that is turns out to be like Chidori-san, Fuuka-san will just have wasted a lot of time. Or maybe they’ll be in the TV when she visits. We can’t be sure. Don’t worry. I know what I’m doing. _

Mitsuru didn’t reply, but he knew what she was thinking. None of them had ever really known what they were doing.

But she also didn’t insist on sending Fuuka to Inaba for a bit, so she probably at least trusted that nobody was going to turn up dead. Which was definitely something.

Particularly when Ken wasn’t even entirely sure of that part.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, Naoki!
> 
> A lot of the reason Mitsuru doesn't push the matter is because everyone in Iwatodai actually have lives outside of fighting Shadows, so they just don't have the time for a full inspection of Inaba. If they did, this plot would be over very quickly.


	33. In Which Many Things Turn Out to Be Impractical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group takes Kanji to see Teddie, going off on several tangents along the way.

After the fog came and went, half of the trip to Junes was convincing Yukiko that, no, she really didn’t have to wear gag glasses through the store, particularly when she had a pair of glasses that actually looked dignified.

She wouldn’t even need glasses until they got into the television, anyway.

“And… you carried all your stuff through here?” Kanji glanced around at the store full of people.

Ren shrugged. “They didn’t notice the fox or Koromaru, either. Getting everything into the TV is important enough not to question it, but…”

“Most of the stuff we have is too small to be noticed, though,” Ken added.

Kanji nodded, and looked as if he was thinking deeply about something. “...D’you think they’d notice me snagging a chair or something?”

“...Maybe bring your own chair.”

“Or a desk! I could use a desk!” Ren was starting to get a bad feeling about what having Kanji around would mean for their ability to keep a low profile. “I mean, ‘t’s not like anyone’d notice.”

Ken sighed. “I’d try to argue, but nobody ever actually asked me what happened to that ski pole.” Apparently, they were just throwing out the idea of stealth entirely. All right, then.

Yukiko paused. “Ski pole?”

“Yeah, it sort of melted…” There was no real blame being thrown around, but Ren was still aware that it had been Shadow Yukiko’s fire that spelled the end of that thing.

“Come to think of it, there… really isn’t a lot of surveillance around here.” Not that it would be a good idea to risk getting caught shoplifting when they sort of needed continued access to Junes. But the fact remained that, if an attempt was made, it might actually have gotten somewhere.

Ren decided to end that train of thought before he was tempted into stealing something.

* * *

  
  


At this point, the only one of them who wasn’t used to falling from a great height was Kanji, who landed unceremoniously with a thud and groan of pain.

“Why does it start so high up…?” He complained, pushing himself to his feet.

Ken honestly had the same question, though at this point he was pretty sure there wasn’t ever going to be a real answer. “I mean, you get used to it after a while…” He slipped his glasses on, and the world came back into focus. “Teddie, we’re here!”

As expected, a large, fuzzy shape appeared from behind one of the nearby staircases, struggling to approach while wearing one roller skate. It wasn’t going very well.

“W-watch out! Bear passing through!” The Shadow called, continually stumbling their way.

Ren blinked. “...Having trouble taking them off again?”

“I managed to get one of them off!” Teddie insisted, finally falling over and rolling the rest of the way towards the others. “Ow… a little help, please?”

“...With the skates or sitting up?”

“Both!” Okay, yes, that made sense. Ren got to work removing the stubborn skate, and Ken helped the bear to his feet, where he looked around at them with wide eyes. “Thank you! Oh, and this time you brought along… Kanji, right?” He checked, and got nods in return. “Um… why is he staring at me?”

As stated, Kanji’s eyes had not left the bear since he stumbled onto the scene, beholden to the fog or not. “He’s… so cute… and fluffy…”

“Teddie’s the whole reason we’re able to do anything in this world,” Ken explained, wondering how many more times he’d have to go over that. “He finds people, makes exits for us to leave from… It’s because of him that we have glasses that can see through the fog.”

“Oh, yeah, speaking of that!” Teddie produced a pair of dark glasses with the same rainbow stripes at the sides as all the other pairs. “Here you go! I made it special for you, Kanji.”

Despite the darker lenses, it was hard not to notice Kanji’s eyes widening as he took in the world around him. “Huh, this is… it’s even clearer than outside.”

Yukiko blinked. “...Kanji-kun, do you need glasses normally?”

“Um… Not sure, really. You know there’s no one in town you can really go to for that stuff, and I haven’t been to Okina in ages… But if I do, hey! Free glasses!”

“...Please go see an actual eye doctor.” This was not a conversation Ken had ever expected to be overhearing, but that was probably because the members of SEES who weren’t particularly good at taking care of their health had others to force them into it.

Teddie tipped his head to the side, ears twitching. “Is… is something the matter?”

Ren shook his head. “No, I… think you’ve just been… really helpful. More than usual, even.”

“Really!?” If Ken didn’t know any better, he’d say that his eyes had temporarily turned into stars. ...Then again, he was a Shadow, so maybe they had.

“Yeah, it could cause a lot of problems if Kanji-san couldn’t see.” Sure, if he did need glasses, it was mild enough for no one to have noticed before, but that didn’t mean they wouldn’t be helpful. “Though… if we go back to the sauna, I guess it wouldn’t matter…”

“We’re not going back to the sauna.” It was almost amazing, just how quickly they could all come to an agreement on that. But then, this wasn’t exactly a hard decision to make.

* * *

  
  


Leaving Junes, as usual, was more relaxed than coming in, since if nobody noticed them when they came out of a television set into the electronics department, and none of them were carrying anything that needed to be hidden at the moment, they were free to do basically whatever they wanted with the rest of their day.

Of course, it would be a lot more relaxing if Kanji wasn’t still debating the large number of heavy objects he could use to hit Shadows with. “Maybe a desk? I could get a spare one from the school no problem…”

“...Is that more or less likely to cause issues than you ‘borrowing’ a Junes folding chair?”

“I mean, if they’re not using it, what’s the problem?”

“I think people might notice you carrying a desk through the town like that,” Ren pointed out, not sure why he had to be the voice of reason at the moment. “...Also, I’m not sure how practical that would be of a weapon.”

Ken shrugged. “I mean, Shinjiro-san could get pretty far with just a bus stop sign, and you were using wrenches until recently. ...Also, Akihiko-san once fought some really powerful Shadows with just his Persona and a pair of hand puppets.” Ren wasn’t sure what lesson he was supposed to be taking from that, other than that Ken’s friends were weird.

Yukiko gave him a curious glance. “How much of it was the puppets, and how much of it was his Persona?”

“...About even, actually. Same as usual.” Okay, but even with how little he’d seen of him, it also didn’t surprise Ren at all that Akihiko would decide to fight things with hand puppets.

“...Okay, but Kanji-san still shouldn’t go through the town with a school desk.” Among other things, he wasn’t even sure something like that would fit through the television.

“Maybe not, but we shouldn’t be turning down any possibilities,” Yukiko commented. “After all, if we don’t want to attract attention, we can’t really get armor.”

Right. That was still a problem. Ren turned to Ken. “Did you ever have to worry about things like armor before?” He knew he’d had at least semi-regular encounters with Shadows, but maybe it hadn’t been enough to worry about this sort of thing.

“Well, we had armor, but the person we got it from sewed it into everyday clothing so we didn’t look weird wearing it on the monorail. I’ve still got mine, but I… sort of… grew out of it.”

“...You said it was in clothing?” And now Kanji’s attention was on things other than what he could potentially use to beat Shadows with. “What do you mean?”

“Well… it’d be easier to show you, actually. It’s… all still in a box, but I could get some of it out really quick, if you want to see.” Ken didn’t sound any less confused than Ren was, but he seemed to be happy to finally have occasion to bring his old things out.

That was… pretty nice, actually. It was rare to see him so excited.

* * *

  
  


For Ken, retrieving an example of his old armor involved simply running upstairs and rifling through a box until he managed to pull out one that hadn’t had the outer layer ruined too much by continuously doing battle against things that had claws and breathed fire. There were fewer of those than he’d expected, even though he realized that Dia was much better at mending skin and bones than clothing.

Kanji was waiting outside for him when he brought it down, glad that he’d managed to grab one of the standard school uniforms and not one of the... less-dignified options.

“I’m not sure I ever actually wore this one,” He admitted. “If I did, it probably would have been during the day, and not when I was trying to fight Shadows, or it wouldn’t look as nice. But it’s as strong as all the rest I have, so take a look!”

Kanji took the uniform from Ken, running his hands over the fabric and giving a careful eye to the stitching. “...Huh. I think I might be able to do something like this, actually.”

“You can? Really?” He supposed it wasn’t that surprising, he lived at a textile shop.

“Yeah. Might take a while to get the materials, and Ma’s probably going to ask why I need this kinda stuff, but… could I have this for a reference?”

“It’s not like I can use it…” It would probably fit Nanako well enough, in a few years, but if they were ever in a position where Nanako had to fight Shadows, then someone had clearly messed up. “We’re probably going to need real armor soon, after all.” Really, he was amazed they’d managed to go so long without it.

With that settled, Kanji left, and now it was up to Ken to figure out what to do next.

The refrigerator was no help. It was just filled with cereal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can justify a lot of things going unnoticed because nobody ever seemed to see the fox, or Kanji lugging a desk through the front door. It leaves a lot of room for absurdity.
> 
> Teddie's doing just fine, by the way!
> 
> Nanako may have come to the realization, over the past month or so, that her Big Bro might not be entirely normal, but as it's currently not all that important to the narrative, it can go ignored for now.


	34. In Which Nanako Starts Asking Heavy Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanako has questions to ask. Ken tries to answer, though he doesn't really want to.
> 
> Ren also has questions to ask. Ken wants to answer these even less.

“Big Bro?” Nanako looked away from her quiz show with a questioning look on her face.

When she got like that, Ken felt like there wasn’t any choice but to answer her. “What is it?”

“Why do people die?” ...Suddenly, that policy felt a lot less like a good idea. Even though he was better equipped to handle this than most twelve-year-olds, Nanako was still six. And even if she had been older, this still wasn’t a conversation he wanted to have.

Still, she had asked, so he would answer. “Well… do you want the biology reason, the metaphysics reason…?” Nanako just looked lost. “...Do you want science, or… not-science?” He needed to figure out a better term for that at some point.

“Um… both?” She sounded mostly confused now, which was admittedly, probably his fault. In hindsight, he thought that maybe mentioning there was more than one reason was a mistake.

“Well…” Ken paused to think of what he was going to say, reaching over and hugging Koromaru to try and calm himself down. “I guess the reason most people care about is because… people’s bodies can’t last forever. They’re not built for that. They all wind down eventually, or… get hurt in a way that can’t be fixed.” And he tried not to think about that last one too much, all the times he’d been faced by the results of that first-hand.

Even the times when nobody actually died hurt too much to think about without worrying his cousin.

“And… the other reason?” Because of course she’d remember that.

“Well… I’m not really sure of it, either. But I knew someone, once, who talked about fate a lot for a bit before disappearing… though, everyone he said was fated to die soon didn’t. One of them even… even woke up when we all thought he wouldn’t. So… maybe I shouldn’t think too much about what he said.”

Nanako nodded along, though odds were she didn’t understand. “Oh, okay…” It looked like she wasn’t done, though.

“...Is there anything else?” Ken knew he’d probably regret asking, but how was he supposed not to?

“...What happens to people, when they die?” ...Okay, yes, there was the regret now, right on schedule, just in time to look into her wide brown eyes.

“That… really isn’t something that… that comes up a lot… I mean, there’s a lot of different ideas about that, and there’s… really not any ways to see who’s right. It… I guess it’s meant to be a mystery.” Maybe he could have given a somewhat accurate answer, if he thought deeply, and followed feelings where even Kala-Nemi couldn’t identify their source.

But even if he did find it, this really wasn’t a thing he wanted to talk about with a six-year-old.

“I guess so,” Nanako agreed. Koromaru wriggled out of Ken’s arms and jumped down to join her. “Oh, hi, Koro-chan!”

The heaviness of the conversation disappeared, and the atmosphere returned to normal. Ken breathed a sigh of relief and hoped nothing like that would come up again.

At least, not for a very long time.

* * *

  
  


Ren walked through the shopping district together with Ken, the sky above them a perfect eggshell blue. The air was nice and warm, and the two of them were simply enjoying their day.

Ren wasn’t sure what to talk about, so he let his friend pick the topic of conversation.

“You know, I keep expecting to see a lot more people our age out,” Ken commented, glancing around at the streets where only they really walked.

“Well, there’s not that many people our age around to begin with,” Ren pointed out. “And then the murders started happening, so they might not think it’s safe. Once the person who did it is caught, we might start seeing more kids around.”

“...If they’re caught.” Ken’s gaze was now directed firmly at the ground. “I mean… even if we figure out who did this, who says anyone will believe us when we tell them? It’s… the sort of thing that only other Persona Users will listen about.”

Ren supposed that shoving people through television sets was a kind of murder method that would be hard to explain to the unitiated. Possibly even a few that were. It wasn’t like he’d been there when Ken had told his senpai about the other world.

“You… think they’re not going to pay attention to us?”

“If they don’t just tell us we’re imagining things. I mean, that’s what happened when…” He fell silent.

Ren found this concerning. “...Ken-senpai?” Ken blinked, and shook his head.

“...Sorry. It’s just… I don’t think they’re that much more likely to listen now than… than they did when I was nine. Even my uncle doesn’t know… what really happened when my mom died.” This was the first mention of any sort of why Ken was living in Inaba, though the timeline didn’t make much sense. “It’s just something most people wouldn’t believe. It took me almost two years to find people who would, and… that’s because they made it their job to handle that sort of thing, since no one else could.”

And, suddenly, part of Ken’s mysterious history made perfect sense. “She was killed by Shadows?”

Ken glanced away. “...Y-yeah. Something like that.” He appeared to be distinctly uncomfortable. The Justice Social Link grew stronger. “...So, do you think Teddie would like it if I got him some topsicles? They seem like something he’d like eating…”

Well. That was a fast change of subject. Still… it was easy to see why it had happened. “Get him some fudge bars, too. I’m sure he’ll love those.”

Ken nodded, and excused himself with the justification of having to go see what a Shadow on a sugar rush looked like. Ren let him go, watching as he disappeared around the street corner.

...Still, while he was here, maybe he could talk to Naoki for a bit. He seemed like someone he’d be able to form a bond with…

* * *

  
  


Teddie hadn't been much help when it came to Ken actually trying to handle his problems, but he’d enjoyed exposing the little bear to the world of frozen treats, which the small Shadow gobbled down at a speed that Ken didn’t think anyone short of Mitsuru would be able to withstand.

Still, the afternoon was now over and done with, and he’d come back to a house where his uncle was still, as always, nowhere to be seen. It was sad that things were predictable like that, but at least he knew what to expect.

“Arf!” Koromaru ran to greet him with a wagging tail, Nanako not far behind him.

“Oh! Welcome home, Big Bro!”

“Hey, Nanako. Koromaru.” Ken leaned down to ruffle behind his dog’s ears, which only served to excite Koromaru even further. “Have you had a good day?”

“It was… all right, I guess. The new Featherman series was on today. I really like Pink Argus. She’s really cool. Koro-chan thinks so, too, right, Koro-chan? He was so close to the TV I thought he might jump through!” Wouldn’t that be a thing to have to explain?

“Arf!” Koromaru’s tail was reaching ballistic speeds. Ken wondered if he should have been concerned about that.

...He probably just missed Yukari. He wasn’t the only one.

“I see. Was there anything else interesting on TV?” It was easy to see that, if she didn’t have reason to leave the house, Nanako was just going to sit there all day.

“Just the news… and they were still talking about…” She stopped there. “...Big Bro? Why do people do bad things?” Of all the questions she could have asked… of all the ones Ken felt vaguely qualified to answer… Of all the things he didn’t want to ever have to talk about.

“That… I think it depends on the person,” He said, finally leaving the doorway so he could collapse on the couch for a bit. “I mean, they all have their own reasons, but… there was one reason that I saw a lot, back in Iwatodai.”

Nanako tilted her head to the side. “Really? What is it?”

“It’s… These people kept getting hurt a lot. And they thought the best way to… to handle that… was hurting everyone else. Or… if I- if someone was really mad at a person… they might do something to- to hurt that person.” This was getting far, far too personal. Maybe it was better just to let the matter die then and there.

First Ren, and now this... He'd been sharing way too much, recently.

“...I see.” Nanako nodded silently, her gaze directed solely to the floor. “And… then it becomes Dad’s job to catch them, but…”

“But?” This didn’t feel like a good sign.

“It.. feels sort of like- do you think Dad cares more about the bad guys than me?” Could they go back to talking about TV shows now? Ken would have been a lot more comfortable talking about that.

“I… think he’s just trying to keep us safe.” Maybe. After all, there had to be some sort of reason for why he was never around. “But, it… would be nice, if he was here more often.”

Nanako didn't ask any more questions. Ken was relieved. He wasn’t sure he could handle any more than that.

Time to move back to a lighter topic...

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: My cousin’s a fan of yours. _

_ Takeba Yukari: Really? _

_ Amada Ken: I was too busy to watch the new episode today, but she told me all about it. She said you were really cool. I’ll probably see it myself, the next time it comes on. _

_ Takeba Yukari: That’s not surprising. It’s the first time Kotone’s definitely seen an episode before you. _

_ Amada Ken: ...I take it she talked about it a lot? _

_ Takeba Yukari: I might need to have a talk with the director. The show’s clearly addictive. I mean, that's sort of the point, but… _

It was nice to have a normal conversation with one of his friends again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken is not having a very good couple of days. I'm sure he'll be fine, though.


	35. In Which Ren Does Social Links

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren has a lot of friends to spend time with, many of them needing his help with something or other.
> 
> The problem is, he doesn't always know what to do to help them.

“Amamiya… you spend a lot of time with Amada, don’t you?” Shu asked, his expression hidden behind glasses that he actually needed to wear most of the time.

Ren nodded. “I hadn’t expected it, but it turns out we have a lot in common.” Having Personas, investigating a mystery that would otherwise go unsolved, bewilderment at being able to transport animals through Junes with little difficulty… so many things he couldn’t tell anyone about, even though Shu had asked about Ken multiple times before.

“I wouldn’t think you would, with him being from the city and all.” The word city was spoken with such derision it made Ren wonder if Shu’s mother was the type of person to gossip about Konishi Saki behind her back, not realizing how devastating it would be if that were overheard.

At least… he hoped they wouldn’t have realized it. He didn’t think he would be able to forgive them, otherwise. “I’m… not sure what that has to do with everything.”

“People in the cities have it all,” Shu explained. “Mom told me about it. She says if I have the best grades, I can get into a school far away and have all of that.”

Ren knew it wasn’t that simple. After all, Ken had needed to come to Inaba, hadn’t he? “If it really was like that, though… wouldn’t everyone live in cities? Besides… Ken-senpai left.”

“Yeah, but I bet you anything he’s going back the first chance he gets. It… he’ll probably be the only person to do so, because he's got an advantage.”

It was true that Ken probably had a good chance of getting back to Iwatodai if he wanted to, but Ren was pretty sure that was less something inherent to coming from the city, and more due to knowing Kirijo Mitsuru. “He… I think he’d help you, if you asked for it.”

“...I don’t need his help.” Shu walked away, and the Tower Social Link got even stronger.

Ren was starting to worry a lot about Shu… hopefully, he didn’t do anything he would later grow to regret.

It wasn’t like there was any way that he could stop him.

* * *

  
  


There were some things that it probably wasn’t practical to introduce to Teddie. Things like jigsaw puzzles, which could keep a person occupied for days at a time, but where the pieces had a nasty habit of getting lost when given the slightest opportunity.

As Ren liked puzzles, and was sure Teddie would be bored enough to enjoy them even if his interests didn’t lie anywhere near that direction, he decided that it would be worth the risk of doing so, buying a small selection of cardboard boxes from Junes before making the trek to the electronics department to present them to the bear.

Teddie, like always, seemed fascinated by the objects brought to him from the human world. “So… I’m supposed to put these together?” He picked up a puzzle piece in his paw.

“That’s right. If you manage to finish the puzzle, it should make a picture. All you have to do is figure out which parts go with each other.”

“Oh, I get it…” He started pawing through the puzzle pieces. “There’s a whole lot of them, though… Renren, are you sure they all go together?”

“That’s what it says on the box…” And Ren tended to trust the box on that sort of thing, since the only way to know for sure would be to sit down and try to solve the puzzle, while also counting out every single piece. “It’s… like how I have a lot of Personas, but they’re all a part of me.”

“You’re special, though. Everyone else just has one Bearsona.”

“Right. They’re smaller puzzles, with less pieces, and I’m this big puzzle. I can only carry so many at a time, but there’s so many Personas I have access to… I’m not sure how many there are. I lost count a long time ago.” About as quickly as he started regularly visiting the Velvet Room.

Teddie stopped spreading out the puzzle pieces for a bit, eyes still focused on the pile. “...Renren? How many pieces do you think I have?”

Ren thought that Teddie was maybe taking his explanation just a bit too literally. “That… I don’t know. I’m not sure that’s the sort of thing people are meant to know, I just… It’s a metaphor.”

Teddie nodded, ears twitching, and then he paused.

“...What’s a metaphor?”

* * *

  
  


Ren met Yukiko by the riverbank, fighting off an intense desire to run. “I think it turned out edible this time,” She said, setting the box down in front of him.

The contents of the box didn’t smell great, but it also didn’t seem to be all that terrible. Just… vaguely unpleasant in ways that Ren couldn’t explain.

Still… he’d promised to try, and so he took a bite of the meal he’d been presented with.

He chewed, and swallowed, and ignored the flavor as best he could. “Well… It’s not poison, at least,” He finally declared, after successfully choking down the supposed food.

“...But it doesn’t taste good, either,” Yukiko finished. “The chefs at the inn offered to help me, but every time I tried, they’d just take away the knife… and Chie’s recipes all have meat added to them. At least now she’s not running them through Google Translate…” He didn’t want to know.

“Still, maybe you should be testing it out yourself, instead of asking others to do it for you,” He suggested. “If you’re just doing this so you’ll be able to make stuff for yourself later, isn’t the most important thing whether or not you like your food?”

Yukiko sighed, and replaced the lid on the box. “I suppose…” She started, making sure everything was shut tightly. “But I want to make sure everyone else enjoys it, too.”

Privately, Ren wasn’t sure any meals she made would be good enough to share until well after the Shadows stopped being a problem, but he wasn’t going to say so out loud.

“Then you should definitely make sure it’s good beforehand. If you like the results, that’ll be good enough for the rest of us to at least try it.” At least, he hoped it was. “Unless… you’re scared of your own cooking?”

“I-I’m not!” She insisted, fumbling with the box as it attempted to slip out of her hands. Ren wasn’t convinced. “It just… might be better to have a second opinion.”

Ren really, really wasn’t convinced. Still, as long as nobody died, he supposed everything would be just fine. ...Hopefully.

Either way, at least he got a Priestess Social Link rank out of it.

* * *

  
  


Kanji needed everyone to visit him so he could size them up for armor. This made sense, so Ren was perfectly willing to go along with it. Having working armor would be nice.

“All right, that should do for now,” Kanji stated, writing down a last note on the piece of paper he’d been scribbling on the whole time. “Might have to do this again since you’re still growing, and all, but… that should be it.”

“Thanks, Kanji-san.” Ren noticed that Kanji was still wearing his glasses from the TV. “...So, did you actually make it to an eye doctor, or…?”

“Does it matter? I’ve already got glasses.” Ren supposed that he had a point, even if Yukiko wouldn’t be very pleased to hear it. “I don’t have to drag Ma to Okina just to hear about something I already have handled.”

He shrugged. “All right, but you’re the one who has to answer Amagi-san if she asks.” He wasn’t sure she would ask, so long as Kanji was actually wearing some sort of glasses, but there was still a chance. “And I’m not sure they’d work quite so well at night…”

“I mean, I can still see well enough without ‘em. Which is good, cause people are already giving me odd looks for having ‘em in school…”

“Really? No one’s bothered me about mine.” He didn’t even need glasses, he just wore them because it was convenient and he liked the way they looked.

“Yeah, well… you look like a kid who’d wear glasses.” That sentence made no sense and they both knew it. “It’s just… it doesn't matter. They don’t matter, right?”

“...Right.” Ren made a mental note to spend time with Kanji more often, and with that decision, he was presented with the card of the Emperor Arcana.

By this point, such things were no longer a surprise. The cards appeared, and disappeared, and he felt his connections to people grow deeper, stronger, allowing him access to a pool of power that, under normal circumstances, he’d have no reason to access. So many cards, with different pictures and numbers and stories to tell, just as many as there were people they were attached to.

He wondered just how many Arcana there were to collect. It would be nice, to have a large number of friends like that.

He’d just have to keep going until he found out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry, Teddie. We'll get you out of that TV soon...
> 
> Kanji with glasses is one of those things that really shouldn't be ignored as much as it is. ...Even if his current selection isn't the most practical...


	36. In Which Yukiko Goes Camping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some people really shouldn't be expected to cook for themselves. Still, that's apparently happening, so Yukiko supposes she has to give it her best shot.

One of the staples of Yasogami High was the yearly camping trip. The students would be piled into buses, given tents, and expected to pick up litter and cook for themselves.

The previous year, Yukiko’s group had managed to get away with bringing along prepackaged sandwiches, but this year, everyone who had been part of that group had been quietly taken aside and told that they would, in fact, have to use the school’s cooking utensils. Daisuke was the only member of said old group that didn’t seem to be the slightest bit panicked.

Yukiko, meanwhile, was glad at at least she wasn’t in a group with Ai again. She was pretty sure Ai had never so much as looked inside a kitchen in her life.

Did that make the current situation any better? Of course not.

“Um… you can put meat in curry, right?” Chie asked. “But should I grab the beef, pork, or chicken…? Maybe all three?”

Yosuke sighed. “Please stick to just one kind of meat…”

Yukiko narrowed her eyes. “You didn’t have to come along, you know. We’re the ones who will be cooking.”

“I’m sorry I want to know what sort of things I’ll be eating before I put them in my mouth.” He crossed his arms, leaning against one of the shelves. “You do at least have a recipe, right?”

“I mean… curry’s simple enough that we shouldn’t need one.” They just had to lump all of the ingredients together into a pot, right? Easy. She could do that.

“...Do you want me to get you a recipe? I mean, not that I’m doubting your cooking, but… I don’t know if I trust Chie’s.”

“What did you just say!?” And now Yukiko had to stop her classmates from getting into a loud fight in the middle of Junes. Wonderful. Somehow, she thought she should have expected this.

She spotted Kanji and Naoki watching the scene from a nearby aisle, but they vanished as soon as she made eye contact, Kanji a lot faster than Naoki. As if she’d set him on fire in a place with so many witnesses. The only things she burned were Shadows.

...Well. For now, at least. Once she found whoever had thrown her into a television, she was sure that she would be willing to make an exception.

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, curry was not, in fact, something simple enough for Chie and Yukiko to make without a recipe. “What did you even put in this, anyway?” Yosuke complained, pushing the offending plate away from himself. Yukiko would be offended if she didn’t happen to also find the smell disagreeable, as well as being very unsure about how it would taste.

“Well, there was curry powder, pork, green onions…” She listed the ingredients on her fingers. “Eggplant, salt, cabbage, pineapple, pumpkin spice…” Okay, in hindsight, she thought she could see where they’d messed up. “...And… Chie, what kind of peppers did you get?”

“The hottest kind they had, of course!” ...Of course. “I mean, curry’s supposed to be spicy.”

“Not that spicy…” Yosuke took some of the ‘curry’ on his fork and licked it, recoiling immediately afterwards. “...Yeah, this isn’t curry. I don’t know what to call it. Maybe something like Mystery Food X…”

Okay, that might have been going a bit too far.

“Is it… really a mystery if I think I know where we went wrong?” She asked, glancing at her own, untouched plate, as Konohana Sakuya dwindled down to an ember that smoldered in embarrassment. Chie poked at hers, which releasted a purple steam that burned their noses. “Though I’m… not sure how it got to be that color.” They hadn’t used anywhere near enough eggplant for that, unless it had somehow dissolved in the pot.

“That’s why it’s a mystery!” It was hard to argue with that.

There was a sound of footsteps nearby, and Kanji wandered over to their table. “Hey, Yukiko-senpai, I wanted to ask you someting about- what’s that?”

Yukiko sighed in defeat. “Well, at one point, it was meant to be our dinner… Though, I wouldn’t try it, if I were you.”

Kanji eyed the plates of supposed curry suspiciously. “Yeah, wasn’t about to. I’d offer you some of my group’s stuff, but we only really made enough for ourselves...” Right. Apparently, none of them had wanted to be weighed down with more ingredients than they’d actually needed.

“Like we’d take it from you anyway…” Yosuke grumbled. “I don’t even know who you are.”

Right. Yosuke didn’t spend much time in the shopping district, while Kanji spent basically all of his time there. They wouldn’t have had many chances to meet.

“This is Tatsumi Kanji,” She explained. “His mother runs the textile shop in town.”

Chie blinked. “Wasn’t he on TV a while back? Something about a biker gang?”

Kanji groaned. “Enough with the biker gang already.”

As the conversation continued, it was easy to see that he didn’t mesh particularly well with Chie, and even less with Yosuke. Yukiko supposed it had been too much to hope that her classmates would be good friends with her fellow Persona Users, even if it would have been nice to have all of her friends together, but that wasn’t relevant right then.

At the moment, the more important problem was that Dia couldn’t fix poisoning.

* * *

  
  


Technically speaking, the students from Yasogami High weren’t supposed to bring their cell phones with them, but that had never actually stopped anybody. Sadly, such simple things as getting delivery probably weren’t going to happen where they were, but it was at least possible to ask for help, which was good. They needed it.

_ Amagi Yukiko: Do you have any ideas for food you can make with five leaves of cabbage, three slices of eggplant, and half a pineapple? _

_ Amada Ken: ...Are you sure you’re asking the right person? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: At this point, I will take all the help I can get. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Just cut the pineapple and eat that. The cabbage and eggplant might also be good on their own, but I haven’t tried. At the very least, you shouldn’t starve. _

Yukiko sighed. This was about what she’d expected, but that didn’t mean she had to like it.

“So… Chie, Yosuke-kun… do you like pineapples at all?”

“Well, yeah,” Chie said. “If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have told you to add it.”

“Good, because that’s apparently our dinner now. Unless you like plain cabbage and eggplant?” If they did, it would make things easier, even if they’d probably still be hungry afterwards.

Either way, they at least still had edible food. Now the only question was how to dispose of the stuff that wasn’t without drawing attention to it…

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, every male member of Chie and Yukiko’s class had gotten the exact same idea and called in sick… except for Hanamura Yosuke. As the teachers didn’t actually trust the students to be on their own, they had assigned him to sleep in a tent with some of the first years.

Kanji was less than thrilled by this, as Naoki was sullenly glaring at Yosuke, Yosuke kept glancing at him like he was going to go off the handle at any second, and the very best he could hope for, if he made an escape and was caught doing so, was a week-long suspension. It was probably the world’s most awkward sleeping assignment.

On the bright side, it was just fifteen more hours until he was allowed to go home.

Figuring that things were not going to relax enough to get any sleep, Kanji opened the bag of animal crackers he brought.

Yosuke’s attention was now fixed on him entirely. “Wait, is that food? I thought you said you didn’t have any!”

“You said you weren’t gonna take food from me, either way,” He shrugged, Take-Mikazuchi crackling just under the surface. “Hey, Naoki, want some animal crackers?”

“...Sure.” Naoki was quiet, and still looked a little bit like he was contemplating murder, but he took a handful of crackers either way.

Yosuke grumbled and collapsed backwards onto his sleeping bag. Kanji glanced at Naoki.

“Ya know, you don’t hafta be glaring at him all the time like that. What did he ever do to you?”

“He’s from Junes.”

There was a groan from the sleeping back. “I’m from the city, I work at Junes. There’s a difference.” Not that it really mattered. Kanji hadn’t gone to Junes much before his brush with heat stroke, but given what he’d heard from gossiping housewives, that store might as well have been another country entirely. But Yosuke was probably tired of hearing that sort of thing by now.

He sort of got it. Ever since the biker gang incident, that was all people ever thought of when he introduced himself, and of course the topic of the town was currently murder. It would have been annoying even if he hadn’t almost died from spending twenty-four hours in a sauna.

“Hey, tell you what. I’ll tell people around town to stop saying that sort of stuff, if you stop them from talking about biker gangs.” It wasn’t exactly an offer of friendship, but it would probably get rid of some of the tension, and it would be nice to be able to sleep.

“Are you kidding!? They’ll never listen to me!” Maybe if he sweetened the deal a bit?

“...I’ll give you some animal crackers.”

“...Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the most we'll be seeing of Yosuke. He could definitely be doing better, but it could also be a lot worse. (Among other things, I could be giving him more chances to open his mouth. I love him, but he's an idiot.)
> 
> Not shown: Yukiko genuinely considering tricking Hanako into swapping 'curry' with them. She was vetoed by Chie and Yosuke having currently-functional moral compasses.
> 
> At the very least, she is learning from her mistakes. Just very, very slowly.


	37. In Which The Midnight Channel is Unhelpful

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also, Risette is apparently coming to Inaba, but Ken doesn't really care about that yet.

In all honesty, Ken’s knowledge of music came entirely from Minato and Kotone, Kotone a bit more than Minato. He also wasn’t incredibly invested in celebrities, generally having better things to do with his time, if being better carried a high chance of death.

He did, however, know about Risette, albeit mostly because his first big fight had involved getting one of her concerts cancelled. That sort of thing tended to stand out just a bit.

If her name hadn’t gotten his attention, Nanako suddenly standing up would have. “Risette’s coming here!?” She gasped.

“I guess so.” Ken wasn’t particularly interested in the news even with that report, being much more interested in petting Koromaru. “Are you a fan of hers?”

“I think she’s pretty.” He supposed she wasn’t wrong. Actually, she looked vaguely similar to Kotone, which… mostly convinced him that maybe it wasn’t that great of an idea to pay attention to the television. And to definitely never mention a word of it to anyone from SEES. He didn’t need any more teasing about a crush that he’d gotten over more than a year ago.

“...You know, if you grow your hair out a bit more, you might be able to style it like that,” He noted. “...Of course, by the time it gets long enough, we might have forgotten all about it…” And wouldn’t it be nice, to have something he could forget without it meaning people dying?

“You mean I could be pretty like her?” The only question, now, was whether or not Nanako would forget that sort of thing.

Ken got the feeling that she wasn’t going to.

* * *

  
  


“And that should do it!” Kanji declared, setting down something that looked like a normal outfit, but that Ren was sure would be able to keep everyone a lot safer, if only because Ken had suggested it. “I got everything labeled, too, so I can get the others their stuff the next time we meet up. Should be pretty soon, right?”

Ren shrugged. “I mean, the weather report means that the Midnight Channel should be on tonight… though Amagi-san says Ken-senpai and I probably shouldn’t be watching it.”

After seeing Kanji’s Shadow, it was hard to blame her for that, but it was still one less thing he could do at night. It wasn’t like his parents would be paying attention, as long as his grades didn’t drop and he didn’t leave the house while it was dark.

“Why- oh, yeah, probably a good idea for you not to tune in.” Okay, that wasn’t fair. Kanji hadn’t even ever seen the Midnight Channel before, why did he get to tell them not to watch it? “If it’s the Shadows running the show… Maybe not something for kids.”

His Shadow had said something like that too, and actually had a point about it. Both because of what the place was, and how dangerous it was for anyone to be there.

Of course, the Shadow had also ignored how his other self had been much warmer than was strictly safe for hours on end, so Ren thought he’d take his advice with a grain of salt. Especially since the Midnight Channel, tonight, probably wouldn’t be all that detailed. It never was, on the first night of a particular showing.

But then… maybe getting more sleep would be a better idea. If they were going to be fighting things in the near future… rest would probably be important.

At least, whatever appeared, they probably wouldn’t have to worry about heat stroke, this time.

* * *

  
  


The Midnight Channel was not clear enough for anyone to have an idea of who it could be. This meant more waiting, something that Ken was used to from sitting around until the full moon arrived, unable to do anything but practice with his abilities until he felt he had a chance of survival.

The others were… less thrilled about this.

“I guess I won’t be visiting Ted over the next few days,” Kanji mumbled. “He keeps asking if we’ve found any clues, and this is a bit…”

“Teddie was doing just fine when I saw him yesterday,” Yukiko commented. “I think it should be all right to leave him on his own for a bit.”

She said that, but at the same time… Ken didn’t feel right about leaving the little bear alone. It was clear that Teddie was a lonely person, who needed friends. Letting him be on his own was… well… not ideal.

“Maybe we could just… not mention the Midnight Channel for now?” He suggested. “I mean, if there’s no film crews or anything, and no people in that world, he shouldn’t know anything about it unless we tell him.” Not that he was supporting lying to him, or anything, but it seemed like a simple enough solution that wouldn’t isolate their support.

“He’s going to wonder why we don’t say anything, though,” Ren pointed out. “I mean, it’s been a while since the last Midnight Channel, and he’s got a good enough sense of time.”

“I’m not sure how you can say that. We had to teach him what time even was.” Treating Teddie like just another kid was helpful most of the time, but sometimes he needed a bit of assistance. Usually, it was with something people their age already tended to know, though, so at least they could help him without having to go to the others.

As good as SEES was to Ken, there had still been questions he was waiting for the answer to, because they said that they’d tell him when he was older. No amount of assistance with saving the world was going to force his older friends into that sort of conversation before they were ready. And he was pretty sure, by this point, that it was actually them who weren’t ready to talk about these things with him.

“It’s only until we find out who’s on TV, anyway,” Yukiko noted. “And even if we didn’t say anything, I doubt Teddie would notice. He’s too trusting.”

This was true. Teddie hung off of every word that one of them said, which was probably going to lead him to trouble if he ever ended up in their world. It was also a very strange trait to see in a Shadow, though Teddie had already broken the norms by being sweet and cheerful.

“So… you want me to go see Ted later?” Kanji checked.

“It’s that or leave him all on his own…” Something that they’d all concluded was a bad thing to happen. “If you want to see him, go ahead.”

Besides, Teddie wanted friends, and Kanji wanted to pet the bear. Was there really any reason to try and keep them separate?

* * *

  
  


Ken’s uncle was home that night, in contrast to most other nights. Ken didn’t pay him that much attention, but right then, he was doing something that definitely grabbed his notice.

“You’re making coffee?” He asked, trying not to sound too excited past Koromaru’s disapproving look. What would a dog, even one as smart as Koromaru, know about healthy habits, anyway?

“That’s right. Of course, all we have is instant, but… would you like to try some?” Was this his next attempt at trying to get to know him?

...At the very least, it was much more likely to work than the ones prior. Ken nodded, deciding that this probably wouldn’t be the time to mention his prior encounters with the drink, particularly the Hot Sauce Incident. “Can you put cream and sugar in it?” He wasn’t too old for people to accept that he enjoyed sweet things, right?

“I’m sure we’ve got some somewhere…” It came to mind that apparently nobody in this household knew how the kitchen was organized, if it could be considered organized at all. Personally, Ken was rather doubtful on that point.

“It… hasn’t ended up in the back of the fridge, right?” He checked. Honestly, he wasn’t entirely convinced that there wasn’t anything living in there…

“It shouldn’t have… I know I used it just the other day.” He continued rummaging through the kitchen. “Ah, there it is. “It was under the cans of soup.”

Ken decided that, if he ever felt the urge to learn, he was joining Yukiko’s cooking lessons. This just didn’t seem like a safe learning environment. “I’m… glad you found it.” He’d tried black coffee before. It just wasn’t something he enjoyed. And that was before Minato had shown up with a terrible joke that was taken all too seriously.

It had, at the very least, allowed Ken to accept that there was exactly one way he liked his hot drinks- sweet, or not at all. Anything would be better than a repeat of that.

“...You know, back when I first married Chisato, we made a deal. The only job I would ever have to do was make coffee, but I was also the only one who was allowed to do it.”

“Is that why things never get done around here?” Ken found himself asking. It was a legitimate question. Nanako probably knew the most of anyone in the building how to take care of a household, and she was six. This was more than a little concerning.

“...Maybe.” That probably meant yes. “Anyway...” And there was a clear attempt to change the subject. “...If nothing major comes up, I should be able to come home early on Friday, if you’d like.”

“That… that’d be nice.” Odds were that something would have come up by Friday, the Midnight Channel being what it was, but Ken appreciated the sentiment. Close to the weekend or not, there wasn’t much chance that anyone from SEES would show up.

And maybe nothing would come up. Maybe Ken would be able to just spend the day with his family and teammates.

It probably wouldn’t be that way, but at least he was allowed to hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No. Bad Kanji. No abandoning Teddie.
> 
> The timeframe for Rise going missing is great for a number of reasons. This is just one of them.


	38. In Which A Stakeout Is Attempted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The key word here, of course, being 'attempt.'

After another Midnight Channel, the silhouette on the screen was recognized as being that of Kujikawa Rise. This was a bit more helpful, but still left the question of what they were supposed to do about it.

...The answer, apparently, involved visiting a tofu shop that had just seen a mass exodus of customers. Ken wasn’t sure why he was surprised.

His uncle came out of the store, followed by his partner. “What a day…” And then he noticed them. “Huh? What are all of you doing here?”

“We’re out of tofu at home,” Ken replied. “At least… I’m pretty sure we are… We’ve run out of stuff that’s safe to eat, at least.” It was mildly concerning that he couldn’t say anything more than that. “And Ren-san said he’d come with me. I dunno about the others…”

Kanji and Yukiko shot surreptitious glares in his direction, barely avoiding the notice of the adults. As if it was somehow Ken’s fault that it was incredibly difficult to find excuses for why a pair of very different-seeming high school students would go grocery shopping with a pair of middle schoolers. It wasn’t like he’d never tried before. He just hadn’t been living there yet.

“We’re… also… here for tofu,” Kanji grumbled. It came to mind that it would probably have attracted less attention if there’d been just one of them showing up instead of all four.

At least Ken hadn’t brough Koromaru. That was one thing he didn’t think any of them wanted to explain.

“...Well. Try not to make any trouble.” That was actually easier than Ken had thought it would be.

“Don’t worry. We won’t.”

The four of them crowded inside, blinking around at a darker room than would be expected, for a store that was open in the middle of the day.

“Sorry, I’ll get right over to you,” A voice that sounded a lot like Kotone on a bad day stated, the girl they were looking for appearing behind the counter. “Is there… something you wanted? Sorry, but I’m not giving out autographs right now.” Had people actually been asking her for that?

“We were… actually hoping to get tofu.” At least Ren sounded just as confused as he was. “Has- has that been a big problem for you?”

The only response that he got was a heavy sigh, which honestly said just as much as an actual reply would have.

“So… I think we had this written down somewhere…”

Ken sighed, and pulled out his own copy of the list. “I’m Ken, Ren-san’s the shorter one with glasses, Kanji-san’s the one who looks a lot scarier than he is.” He didn’t think he needed to explain Yukiko. “Try not to get us mixed up.”

“Don’t worry about it. I know what I’m doing.” She sounded a lot more confident than Kotone normally did when she said it, so he supposed he’d just have to trust her. “So… you’re all friends with each other?”

It was hard to blame her for sounding doubtful. They didn’t exactly look like a normal group of friends. “That’s right. We’re all working on something important together.”

Rise nodded, but didn’t ask what, exactly, they were working on.

“Say… have you heard of the Midnight Channel?” Yukiko suddenly asked. Ken wondered why they were even bothering to try being subtle anymore.

“You mean that urban legend? Yeah. Everyone’s saying I’m appearing on it, but I took a look last night, and… that couldn’t have been me. My bust’s not that big.”

Ken had no idea how she could sound so sure of that when it hadn’t been a particularly good picture to begin with. “Still… bad things tend to happen to people who appear on it. You should be careful.” Not that he was sure she’d listen to him.

Still, they’d made an attempt, and maybe that was the important thing.

* * *

  
  


_ Amagi Yukiko: I’m thinking we should try doing more to protect Rise-chan. _

_ Amada Ken: What do you mean by that? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Well, Chie would probably suggest a stakeout. Though… I’m not sure she realizes there wouldn’t actually be steak involved. I swear she’s not always obsessed, but… _

_ Amada Ken: Don’t worry, I understand. Akihiko-san eats a lot of meat, too, and Satonaka-san sort of seems like a younger version of him… which is genuinely worrying. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Does he… get into a lot of trouble? _

_ Amada Ken: You know that thing that hides in boxes. He convinced us to fight it once. We only won because we had a pair of experienced Wild Cards. Wild Cards are ridiculous. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: But the stakeout? Yes or no? _

_ Amada Ken: I’ll be there, I guess. It might even be interesting. _

Ken flipped his phone shut, almost wishing it was raining so the Midnight Channel could prove there was no reason for all of them to probably make fools of themselves even though Ren was the only one of them who actually possessed that Arcana.

“Who were you talking to this time?” Nanako asked.

“Amagi-san. You remember her, right? She invited me to do something in the shopping district tomorrow.” Koromaru nudged at him. “D-do you want to come along, boy?”

“Arf!”

“C-can I come, too? I mean, I’ll probably just get in the way, but...” She seemed to genuinely want to just not sit around in an empty house all day. Ken knew the feeling. That was why he spent almost all of his time outside.

“That… I’ll have to ask Amagi-san in the morning.” It’d be weird if he just restarted the conversation now, wouldn’t it? “I think she was going to bed now.”

“...But you’re bringing Koro-chan?”

“Well, it’s… not like people can really say no to Koromaru.” Worst case, he could divert possible attention from the tofu shop by allowing people to pet his dog. And besides, Koromaru was a member of the team. “I’m sure she’ll say yes to you, we just need to wait until we can ask.”

Nanako looked at the ground. “...Okay.” She didn’t seem entirely okay with this. “But… I guess it’s all right if you just take Koro-chan with you. He’s special, after all.”

“...What do you mean?”

“Most dogs aren’t this smart.” It was very hard to deny that. Most dogs also didn’t have the presence of self required to use a Persona, which just went further to prove that Ken had the best dog ever. “And it… feels like he’d be good at keeping people safe.”

“Arf!” Koromaru looked really pleased to hear this about himself.

Ken nodded. “He’s always been good at keeping me safe. If he likes a person, that’s… generally a good sign that they can be trusted, even when they look like they can’t.” If only he’d figured that out earlier… “I try to pay attention to him. It’s… really easy to see he knows this stuff a lot better than I do.”

The worried look on Nanako’s face told him he might have gone a bit too far with the honesty. “Are you… going to need him to keep you safe?”

“...I hope not. But there’s no reason not to be careful.”

It really shouldn’t have been so easy to get an agreement about that.

* * *

  
  


Ren, being still not in possession of a cell phone, came across the stakeout completely by accident. He wasn’t entirely sure how helpful this would be, or why one of the detectives from the previous day was there, but everyone else also seemed a bit confused by the last part, so at least it wasn’t just him.

“We have snacks,” Ken declared, passing out a few packs of trail mix. “...Nanako wanted to come along today, too, but… it didn’t seem like a good idea. She’d probably just get bored and wander off.” It was nice to see that he wasn’t the only one simply hoping nothing would happen.

“Yeah, Dojima-san probably wouldn’t be happy if she got lost…”

“...Adachi-san, you still haven’t told us what you’re doing here.” Ken sounded annoyed, as if he’d been asking about this sort of thing for a long time, and still gotten no response.

Koromaru was outright refusing to acknowledge the man’s presence. Ren wondered if Adachi had done something to annoy him… He at least knew why Ken would have a problem.

“Oh, you know… I’m just making sure nothing happens.” This was a lot more ominous than it probably should have been.

“We can’t get him to leave…” Ken sighed. “But I guess it doesn’t matter… we’re here for the same basic thing, after all.”

“Oh, are you interested in police work, Ken-chan?” Ren thought it was a powerful testament to Ken’s self control that he had yet to snap. Ken shook his head. “Why not?”

“It just… doesn’t really appeal. Besides, I’m… really not a fan of police stations…” Ken was now looking anywhere except at anyone else. Ren wondered if now would be a good time to intervene. Kanji and Yukiko were also exchanging awkward glances, perhaps wondering how they’d ever gotten into this situation. “O-oh, look over there!”

There was, in fact, a person climbing the telephone pole, carrying a heavy-looking camera. Even if he didn’t end up being the murderer, Ren was pretty sure he could be charged with something.

...Of course, in hindsight, maybe they shouldn’t have all given chase, but at least it made things slightly less awkward. For now.

...He supposed they’d be going into the TV tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know... things were going well for a bit... and then Adachi had to show up and make things weird.
> 
> Ren had no idea what was going on right then, but he's also pretty sure that he didn't really want to know, so I guess it all works out.


	39. In Which Ken Turns Thirteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ...And yet, that fact keeps being overshadowed by various things. Mostly the fact that Rise has gone missing.
> 
> Things don't progress as quickly as he would like it to.

The next morning, it took several minutes for Ken to give in to the urge to check his phone. While he enjoyed being able to keep into contact with everyone, the fact remained that, if anyone who’d had the courage to watch the Midnight Channel had seen anything, he’d be spending his birthday in a world inside the TV, fighting Shadows.

Not that it made him any less happy to be getting acknowledged by everyone, but it seemed like the sort of thing that he’d want to respond to, except now he couldn’t because he didn’t want to make the others worry about him more than they already did.

Yukiko, not being privy to that sort of personal information, had simply mentioned that it would be a good idea to go into the TV, and also reiterating the opinion that the Midnight Channel was not for children. Ken decided that he didn’t want to know.

“Did Uncle already leave?” He asked, arriving down the stairs to see Nanako in the middle of trying to make breakfast.

“Yeah, he… seemed really worried about something. And… he said that he probably wouldn’t be here tonight.” Of course he wouldn’t. Not when a celebrity had just been kidnapped.

“I… sort of figured he wouldn’t.” Even discounting the Midnight Channel… there was definitely a trend there. “It’s fine. I wasn’t actually expecting him to be here.”

Nanako didn’t seem to be pleased by this at all. He’d figured she wouldn't be. “...It’s still not fair.”

If the world was fair, Ken wouldn’t have spent four months vainly trying to wake someone up from a coma. But something told him it wouldn’t be a good idea to mention that to Nanako.

“...I know,” He said instead. “Have a good day, all right?”

He didn’t get any sort of answer.

* * *

  
  


There were now enough of them involved with investigating the murder case that they had to all line up and crawl through the television one by one. It would look ridiculous, to anyone observing, the way they all crowded around and slipped through the screen.

Not that there was anyone observing. If there were, they wouldn’t have tried entering the other world to begin with. Ken still found it sort of laughable.

If they got many more people, it would probably be time to start figuring out how to acquire a television that was less public, but for now, at least this section of the store didn’t get much traffic.

While Koromaru was always fitted with his goggles beforehand, and Ren and Kanji just never bothered taking them off, time still had to be put aside for Ken and Yukiko to put on their glasses. Of course, that was just time when the others could greet Teddie and tell him what they were doing, and it was only a few seconds most of the time, so it was still fine.

“Rise-chan… Rise-chan…” The bear paced back and forth, only pausing occasionally to sniff around. “Rise-chan…”

“Can you not find her?” Ken asked. Teddie stomped a foot on the ground with a little squeak.

“Of course I can! I-I- I just need a bit of time! And maybe a few hints!” And everyone’s main point of contact with Kujikawa Rise was in going shopping for tofu.

“Maybe we should go back to town and ask around,” Yukiko suggested. “Maybe a guest at the inn will know something about her, or perhaps we could ask her grandmother.”

That sounded reasonable enough, so long as nobody mistook them for loony fans like the one from the day before. Ken still wasn’t sure why that had happened…

“I’ll ask around the shopping district,” Kanji volunteered. “And Yukiko-senpai, you said you could ask around the inn? So that’s two of us…”

“I could ask my uncle, if he shows up,” Ken mentioned. “He probably won’t, but… I can hope he will.” He also didn’t expect much in the way of answers even if his uncle were around, but this probably wasn’t the time to tell everyone that.

“...Even if they were home, my parents wouldn’t know anything,” Ren admitted. “They don’t really… care a lot, about things outside Inaba. I’m not… sure I can help here.”

Yukiko shrugged. “Don’t worry about it. You could use today to… I don’t know… get more healing items. Ken-kun’s good at keeping us all safe, but…”

“I can’t do everything,” Ken finished. “And the vegetable garden’s going well, but I don’t think it’s going to be replacing medicine and Revival Beads any time soon.”

“So… you’re leaving?” Teddie’s ears somehow drooped, despite how small they were.

“We can’t exactly learn much here,” Kanji pointed out. “So we’ll go, learn what we can, and get back to you soon as possible. Is that all right with you?”

“...Okay…” Teddie still didn’t seem particularly happy. Ken hoped he’d be fine until they could return. “But… come back soon, all right? Even with all the things you gave me, it’s… really bearren, here…” It was only the thought of Aigis’ disapproval that kept Ken from hugging the Shadow. And even then, he still gave the thought serious consideration.

But they also, apparently, had things that needed doing for the day, so he just had to hope that Teddie could handle himself for another day or so.

...It would be fine. After all, he’d handled himself well enough so far, hadn’t he?

* * *

  
  


At this point, Ken would say that he was well versed in any and all matters of uncertainty, particularly about the future. It was just what happened, in any line of work involving Shadows. No matter the amount of power hidden beneath his skin, a random die could still blow up, a Mudoon could still hit its mark. And those weren’t even the only things directly related to combat.

This time, however, he could say he’d found something entirely new- knowing that something had to be done, knowing exactly what it was, and yet not being able to find the right location. Either Fuuka had been able to point out exactly where SEES needed to go, or they could all just go mess around Tartarus for a bit, and they’d find what they needed eventually.

Sure, it wasn’t the most efficient method of doing things, but it still worked, and arguably, that was the most important part.

Yukiko had gone to see if any of the Amagi Inn’s guests had any knowledge of popular culture, particularly relating to celebrities. Kanji was doing the relatively-more-sensible thing and asking the people who Rise actually lived nearby to, even if she’d only come to town recently.

Ren… Ken honestly didn’t know what Ren was doing. Wild Cards were funny that way. So long as nothing blew up, though, it was probably fine to leave him as he was.

...Probably. He still wasn’t completely certain that Inaba wouldn’t end up on fire at some point. They still didn’t have an ice user who could put that sort of thing out- even if Ren figured out whatever trick there was to summoning in reality, his main Persona was weak to ice, and that tended to effect things.

“Maybe I’m worrying too much…” He mumbled, slowly shuffling his way back along with Koromaru. “What do you think, Koromaru?”

All he got in return was a confused whine and a head tilt. Which, honestly, conveyed things a lot more simply than he tended to get from humans. There were benefits to not having words to stumble over. “Yeah… I guess you’re right. We’ll figure this out.”

There wouldn’t be any fog for a while yet. The place where they found Kanji was probably not normal, in terms of how hazardous it was to be in for very long. They had time.

And yet… Ken couldn’t help but feel like he’d wasted the whole day.

They should have been able to do something. But they weren’t. They’d just have to hope that Rise could handle herself until they were ready.

* * *

  
  


When Ken got back to the house, Nanako was already there, waiting for him. “Welcome home, Big Bro!” She chirped, looking more excited than he’d ever seen her before.

“Hey, Nanako. Did something happen?”

“Did you forget? It’s your birthday today!” He hadn’t forgotten, really, it had just been overshadowed by other things, such as the worry that they wouldn’t be able to learn anything about Rise, leading to her body being found a week later. That tended to discourage celebration.

“That… It’s not that important…” Really, about seventy-five percent of the reason he still cared about it as much as he did was spite.

This, apparently, was not helping his case. “Of course it’s important! Just because Dad’s too busy to be here doesn’t mean-” She cut herself off.

“...Nanako?” He wondered if it would be a good idea to direct Koromaru to play with her for a while, if only to provide a better distraction than excitement for the fact that he was continually smuggling weaponry in and out of the house.

“Even if… Even though Dad doesn’t think we’re as important as his work… That doesn’t mean we’re not important. It doesn’t.” It sounded more like she was trying to convince herself of that than anything else.

“I-I know that.” He had so many friends in both Inaba and Iwatodai, it would be sort of impossible for him to forget. “Still, I… didn’t think you’d remember.” Were six-year-olds supposed to be this good with dates? He wasn’t sure. Whether he had been or not, it had been a long time since he was six.

“Why not?” She asked. “Don’t tell me you forgot my birthday.”

“Of course not.” How could he forget? “It’s the fourth of October, same day as-”

Despite forcing himself to stop, Nanako still took notice. “...As?”

“It… doesn’t matter. It was… it was a long time ago. You could… ask your dad about it, or something, I guess, but…” Well, maybe it would be better if she didn’t know the truth. “...So, has anything new shown up in the garden yet?”

He was pretty sure she knew he was desperately changing the subject, but she still nodded. “Yeah! The corn’s growing really, really well! Come on, take a look!”

At the very least, gardening didn’t come with the still-awkward question about why the gifts sent from the city included large amounts of signed Featherman merchandise. That was a conversation that he’d rather put off for just a bit longer.

* * *

  
  


_ Shiomi Kotone: So, did you get your presents yet? _

_ Amada Ken: They came in while I was at school. So, were the figurines your idea, or Yukari-san’s? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: They were mostly her idea, actually! _

_ Amada Ken: Mostly? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: ...I may have suggested the autographs. But did you like the things I actually sent you? _

_ Amada Ken: I’m pretty sure that telling you what Ren-san’s Persona is was a mistake, but at least they’re still good books. Thank you… And tell everyone else thanks for me, too, all right? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: I will. Just… you had a good day, right? You… never responded to anything we sent you this morning. It was… kind of worrying. _

_ Amada Ken: I’m fine. It’s just that now I need to figure out how to tell Nanako that I know Pink Argus, and apparently that’s at least partially your fault. Not that I’m surprised… _

Really, all things considered, the day could have gone a lot worse. The group could have gotten to wherever Rise was and been completely wiped out. In comparison… this was nothing.

His uncle still had yet to return home. At this point, he gave up on staying awake to wait for him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Busy, busy Dojima. Somehow gives less mind to important things than people who live several hours away. Maybe definitely needs to rethink his work-life balance just a lot.


	40. In Which A Strip Club Is Located

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somehow, Kanji and Yukiko have found the information required to search for Rise!
> 
> Now... to survive her dungeon... and not die of embarrassment.

Fortunately, despite Ken’s general worries, Kanji and Yukiko managed to pool enough information about Rise for Teddie to have a serious chance of locating her over the course of an afternoon and also a bit of asking around at school.

“Some of my classmates used to go to the same primary school as her,” Kanji had explained. “Took a while to get them to stop looking at me like I was about to go off on them, but…”

Wherever the information came from, however outdated it was, it had apparently been enough for Teddie to work with, and so they were led to… “What is this place?” Ren asked.

Yukiko didn’t seem to know what to say. “That… well…” Her face was steadily turning redder than it had ever been in the sauna, as she glanced between the two middle schoolers.

Eventually, Kanji was forced to accept defeat. “...It’s a strip joint.”

Teddie blinked, tilting his head to the side. “...Strip? You mean, like zebras have?”

“Was… that supposed to be a joke?” Yukiko asked. “If so, it… isn’t all that funny.”

All she got in return was a shrug. “I guess they can’t all be winners.”

“You know, we should… probably go inside, at some point,” Ken pointed out. “I mean, no matter how bad you think it is… It can’t be that bad, if we’re the only ones here.”

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed, padding up to the entranceway with a wagging tail.

Ren nodded. “And this time, it won’t even be too hot! Probably.” He didn’t sound entirely sure about this, either. “I mean… you didn’t see anything involving high temperatures on the Midnight Channel, right?”

“...Honestly, the Shadow was taking up so much space, it was hard to see anything else.” Well, that was decidedly unhelpful. The last thing they needed was another brush with environmental hazards that none of them were prepared for.

Ren blinked. “Why-?” Ken sighed and shook his head.

“It’s… adult stuff, I think. We shouldn’t be worrying too much about it.” While Junpei’s general failure to censor himself went a long way, it had never quite gotten this far. Ken had never thought he’d be disappointed in the Magician for not running his mouth enough, but apparently anything really was possible. Though it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to mention that to the more responsible members of SEES. They’d probably want to know how this had come up.

“That’s right.” Yukiko was quick to rebalance herself. “So… try not to pay too much attention to anything you see, all right? You’ll understand once you’re older.”

Ken decided against mentioning to them that his birthday had passed just the day before.

* * *

  
  


Ren didn’t think he’d ever seen so much pink all in one place before. “Are these places… normally so pink?”

“I dunno,” Kanji shrugged. “I don’t go to strip joints. Also, didn’t we tell you not to look too close?”

This was true. But while Ren was willing to be warned away from the Midnight Channel after what happened when Kanji’s Shadow was running the show, he was still curious enough to want at least a basic idea of where this place differed from reality.

“Honestly, all this pink’s making me kinda dizzy…” This still didn’t stop Teddie from hopping just a few steps forward every few seconds, peering around. Ren supposed he was a lost cause.

Kanji sighed. “Then don’t look so close at it. You’re a kid like these two, aren’t you?”

“A… kid?” The bear’s ears twitched, as though he was hearing that word for the first time, despite the fact that the word had almost certainly come up before. “What do you mean?”

Ken bit his lip. “He means that… we all still have a lot to learn. He and Amagi-san aren’t exactly grown-ups, either, though. They’re just almost definitely not going to get any taller.”

“Lucky them…” Ren mumbled. “They don’t have to keep buying new clothes.” He could only imagine how annoyed Kanji would be if everyone kept growing out of their armor.

Kanji glanced at him. “You’ve clearly never seen someone trying to keep up with fashion trends.”

“Those do go by pretty quickly,” Ken agreed. “I… tried keeping track once, because one of my senpai does… it didn’t go well.” There was probably a story there. “It was just too confusing.”

“You’ll understand when you’re older,” Yukiko noted. “Or… that’s what Ebihara from school tells me, but we’re the same age. I’m not sure she understands it, either.”

A group of small, floating spheres drifted around the corner, prompting a heavy sigh from Ken. “Oh, not you again…” He groaned. They had yet to encounter any sort of Shadows like this. Ren assumed it had something to do with whatever he’d been doing back in Iwatodai. “Kala-Nemi.”

A few seconds later, the… whatever it was… had gone up in light, never to return.

Ren barely managed to avoid shuddering, though Arsene still shrank away. He was getting stronger, more able to stand up to opponents… and yet this was still something he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to withstand. And with Kanji able to handle lightning, he’d probably be seeing a lot more of it.

“I’m more worried about the Shadows than seeing something I shouldn’t,” He admitted. “They’re getting stronger… but then, so are we, I guess.” It was hard to tell. While Ken and Koromaru were easily the strongest, Kanji was able to keep up with Ken and Yukiko without a problem.

“Arf!” Ren was sure that, if he could understand Koromaru, there’d be something useful there.

“You really have been improving,” Ken agreed. “You’re getting to the next level of spells, aren’t you?”

Ren still wasn’t convinced that really meant anything, but it was likely enough to be true that it wasn’t worth worrying about. So long as they found enough money to pay the fox to heal them, it would all be fine.

A few months ago, he wouldn’t have ever thought this was something he’d have to worry about.

* * *

  
  


“You know, I’ve been wondering something,” Kanji stated, as they checked the same room for the third time in a row and pretended not to be horrifically lost. “Amada, when you summon your Persona, you…” Right. Ren was still confused by that part, too.

“That…” Ken paused, as if searching for the exact word choice. “It’s… habit, sort of. Like, I might be able to call Kala-Nemi without the gesture, but… It’s what I’m used to.”

Yukiko just looked concerned. “Why would you be used to something like that?”

“It… it’s a long story. It’s easier to summon a Persona here, so you shouldn’t have to worry about it.” Somehow, Ren didn’t think this was going to stop anyone from worrying about it.

“Is there a problem?” Teddie asked. “Kenny’s doing just fine, isn’t he?”

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed, not giving any help with finding an actual route through the building.

“There’s… a lot of reasons for people to be worried about all of us,” Ren admitted. “Ken-senpai just has a lot more of those than the rest of us.”

“There’s nothing for you to worry about,” Ken grumbled. “I’m fine.”

It didn’t seem like any of them felt like pushing the subject at the moment. This was good. The more Ren learned about his friend’s past, the less he actually wanted to know.

“So…” It had never been more clear that Kanji was looking for a way to change the subject. Which was fair, because he’d been the one to bring it up in the first place. “So… do you think we should try taking a right turn this time, or…”

Yukiko sighed in defeat. “...Teddie, Koro-chan, could you just sniff out every door we haven’t opened yet?”

That would, admittedly, make things a lot easier.

* * *

  
  


The first time the group encountered Shadow Rise, she, like the other Shadows encountered so far, was less than impressed by the group composition.

“Well, as glad as I am to have an audience…” She cast her gaze over them, golden eyes settling on Ken and Ren. “The things you’ll be seeing here… they’re definitely not for children.”

“We know that,” Ken ground out, reminding himself that this really wasn’t the best time for Kougaon. That could wait until the human Rise had been found. “We still have to be here.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I see. Well, you can’t say I didn’t warn you!” And, suddenly, there she was, back to being cheerful.

Somehow, this was both more and less dismissive than the Shadows that had come before her, and Ken wasn't entirely sure what to think about that. On one hand, it was nice that not all of the Shadows they were meeting were so condescending, but on the other… Well, she could probably stand to be just a bit more relaxed about the whole thing.

...Also, he wasn’t sure if what she was wearing could be technically counted as clothing, but given where they were, that part hadn’t really been that much of a surprise.

...Maybe he’d just try and pretend that the whole encounter had never happened. Yeah, that sounded like a good idea...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear I did not mean to start a trend of all the Shadows wondering why there are children here, but apparently that's a thing that's happening.
> 
> Kanji and Yukiko are currently Very Conflicted about how they're taking Ken, Ren, and Teddie through a strip club. It's just that everything being dark makes it easier for them to hide it.


	41. In Which Everything Is Dark

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group explores a blackout floor, with all of the getting lost that implies.
> 
> They do still manage to at least get somewhere.

While, by this point, everyone was sort of wondering what, exactly, they’d done to deserve wandering through this place with loud music and sparkling lights, they were very definitely in a rhythm now. Even the large amounts of pink were no longer a distraction, when it came to traversing this particular section of the foggy world.

If it were a distraction, well… the sauna had at least taught a number of them enough about going blind that they could probably navigate without their glasses. Maybe.

When they arrived on the next floor, they were more than prepared to tear through it in order to find Rise. And then the lights turned off. As if today hadn’t been complicated enough.

“Wh-what the-?” It sounded almost like Kanji was about to fall over or something. “Did the Shadow not pay the electric bill or something?” If only it were that simple…

“I guess we’re going to have to find our way around in the dark,” Ken sighed, hoping he didn’t trip over any more Shadows. “This… used to happen, some times, back in fifth grade.”

“...Ken-kun, one day, you need to tell us what happened when you were in fifth grade.” It was getting pretty hard to disagree with this, even if this particular little adventure would hopefully not end with the apocalypse. One was enough.

“The dark’s not that bad, though,” Ren stated, as though he didn’t realize that having Arsene as his main Persona gave him a distinct advantage over the rest of them. “I mean… I can sort of see where we are. Maybe. If I squint a little.” This wasn’t exactly helpful.

“I guess that means relying on vision’s out…” Kanji sighed. “Least it’s not just that my eyes are bad.”

“You never actually saw that eye doctor, did you?”

“I’ll get around to it! …Eventually…” Ken wasn’t sure that he believed him.

“I can’t see a thing, either!” Teddie piped up. “It’s so dark… anything could be lurking here. Including some beary grizzly Shadows!” Yes, they’d been acting under that assumption.

“Maybe you and Nobunaga could sniff out our way forward,” Yukiko suggested, prompting a very confused whine from Koromaru. “It’d be better than just wandering around.”

“That… I can do that!” Teddie agreed, quickly. While it was hard to see, Ken could tell that the bear had jumped to attention by the little squeaks his feet made when they hit the ground. “I’m gonna smell out all the doors and everything! You can count on me!”

This was strangely more insistent than he normally was, and the little Shadow was already a force of nature that nobody could resist. Still, he’d gotten them this far, so it’d probably work out.

“Right, then.” When Ren’s voice came out of the darkness again, it was from a different place as last time. It figured that he’d still try and find a way to look around. “Where do we go first?”

“Um… uh… This way!” And so they were off.

* * *

  
  


With how dark everything was, it was impossible to tell if they were making any progress. Shadows would show up and attack on occasion, but that was something that was always going to happen, and they didn’t exactly need high visibility to deal with that.

Which was good. There were a lot of Shadows, and Ken had to make sure to be extra careful when he stabbed things. Fortunately, he was very good at that.

Tartarus gave mercy to no one, after all.

“I swear we’re just going round in circles…” Kanji muttered, somewhere to his right.

Honestly, Ken wouldn’t have been surprised if it turned out they were. These places were complicated at the best of times, and blackout floors were even worse. Here, they didn’t even have the advantage of one of their possible goals having an actual glow to them.

“There’s… really no way to tell if we are or not,” Yukiko agreed from the back of the group. “We could find the stairs, see they’re locked, and lose them again while looking for the key.”

Ken thought that was probably what was going to happen. Multiple times, even. They’d already gotten turned around on themselves often enough when they weren’t stumbling over themselves in the dark. They didn’t need this to happen.

“What are you talking about?” Teddie asked. “Don't you trust my nose? I-I’m pawsitive we haven’t been this way before!” That was… a lot more defensive than usual. Normally, Teddie was nothing but a ball of cheer, maybe even literally.

Kanji just groaned. “Be a lot easier to trust you if we could see where we were going. Why isn’t there a light switch?”

Ren sighed. “We’re in a building full of Shadows that probably don’t need eyes to see. Why would there be a light switch?” That was a good point, unless…

“Maybe we’re not looking for a key or the stairs after all,” Ken commented. “Maybe we just need to be able to turn on the lights, or something. I’d volunteer, but… I don’t think Kouga’s quite what Rise-san’s Shadow is looking for right now.” Also, it tended to end explosively.

Teddie’s squeaking footsteps stopped for a moment. “I… can’t really sniff out a light switch,” He admitted. “...But I do smell Rise-chan nearby! This way!” He charged off again, once more filled with his usual exuberance. Ken hadn’t realized how much there was of it until it was gone.

It was good to see it back. Even if it did mean that, once again, they’d be struggling to keep up with him.

* * *

  
  


Sadly, Teddie’s nose apparently couldn’t detect the giant white snake that was waiting for them. Venom visibly oozed from its fangs, which made Ren shiver ahead of time.

Poison was painful. It made the most important question of the fight become how much healing magic they could spare, and the answer was never more than enough.

Given that this group had Ken, whose healing was too powerful for them to bear very much of, this was definitely not a good sign. “Don’t let it bite you,” Ren warned the others, not looking forward to when he inevitably had to move Arsene to the side to focus on making sure that nobody died from being bitten by a snake. “I don’t think we’d like what happens.”

Ken nodded, stepping back a bit. “Teddie, do you know anything about this one?”

“Um…” Teddie sniffed the air. “It… might have a weakness? To something? I-I don’t know…” He shivered a little, when he finished the sentence.

All right. Ren supposed he'd just have to try everything, then. Or ask the others who could to do it for him. He’d start with Eiga. “Arsene!” He called, prepared to consign everything to darkness once again. The snake, as expected from something that hid in the dark, simply slithered through it like it wasn’t even there. Okay… he’d try wind next.

...This group needed people other than him who could use Garu, Bufu, and Frei, and it needed them yesterday. He just didn’t have the mental resources to keep doing this.

It turned out to be a moot point, as Yukiko swiftly displayed the ability to light the snake on fire, which of course meant that Koromaru would follow up on that as soon as possible. Ren sort of wondered why he even bothered anymore.

On the bright side, at least it was weak to an element they had. It could have been a lot worse.

Now, if only there were an easier way to handle all the poison…

* * *

  
  


Eventually, after draining their entire meagre supply of poison cures, they succeeded in making Amorous Snake Barbecue. This was, admittedly, mostly due to having three people capable of throwing out fire spells at any given moment, but they won, and Ren was pretty sure that was the only important part, so long as they were still capable of moving.

“Is… is everyone okay?” Yukiko gasped, after unleashing the final deadly ball of fire.

“I-I’m fine,” Ken stated, leaning against his spear. “Just remind me not to try stabbing something that slippery ever again.” Given how easily the serpent had wound itself through their attacks, Ren wasn’t sure the exact method of attacking was necessarily the problem here.

Kanji groaned, unfolded the chair he’d insisted on bringing along with him, and sat down in it. “Just… give me a bit of time to catch my breath…” Like it was the first time the group had ever had to take a break while on a rescue mission.

“At least the lights came back,” Ren pointed out. That would make things easier, right? “So now we can actually see things, instead of just following Teddie’s nose all the time. ...No offense.”

“That’s fine,” The bear shrugged. “I-I know I’m not… doing as good as I could have been.”

“What do you mean? You’re doing great.” So far, he hadn’t forgotten a single thing about the Shadows they’d come across. Wasn’t that sort of important?

“B-but I… Since you all started coming here, my nose just hasn’t been working as well as it used to be. Back before then, I could have sniffed out Rise-chan all on my own. But now I can bearly remember the smells of the places we went to before, let alone these ones.” He looked sadly at the ground. “I know… I’m a useless bear…”

Kanji blinked. “Since when was reminding us not to hit things that are healed from it useless? That sort of… stuff… isn’t really a thing you know about right away.”

Ken just sighed. “Kanji-san… you don’t have to censor yourself like that. I’m pretty sure we all know what you wanted to say.”

“Ted doesn’t.”

“...Fair enough.” Ren agreed with him. Teddie was very sweet and innocent, and would probably parrot any words that they introduced him to until they had to physically force him to stop. Better to keep that sort of thing from ever beginning, really.

Teddie blinked, sadness replaced by curiosity as his ears twitched. “What were you going to say, Kanji?”

“That… um… Why don’t you try to find us a way to the next floor or something?”

“Even… even if my nose doesn’t work so good anymore?”

“You’ve gotten us this far, haven’t you?” Ren pointed out. “I’m sure you can get us the rest of the way through this. Then we’ll find Rise-san, we’ll beat her Shadow, and everything will be just fine.” He didn’t really believe they’d be able to stop Rise from denying her Shadow. It hadn’t worked with Kanji or Yukiko.

“You- you’re sure?”

Ren nodded. “Yeah. With all of us together, that Shadow’s not going to stand a chance.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sadly, this group is never going to have specialists for Garu and Frei. Ren's going to have to handle those elements forever... or, at least, until he has a completely different set of problems to deal with.
> 
> The main reason I own a plushie of Teddie is so that, when something bad happens in these stories, I have a way to hug the bear. He needs hugs.


	42. In Which Teddie Needs A Hug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shadow Rise, while dangerous, is ultimately defeated. That means things should be getting better, right?
> 
> ...Right?

The Shadow did, in fact, stand a chance. She was there, wrapped around a pole, throwing fire and ice at any who tried to attack, and avoiding taking any hits in return.

All Teddie could do was watch. Watch as Yuki-chan grinned when the fire splashed against her body with bearly any damage, only to be bowled over by a blast of ice right after. Watch as Kanji was forced to drop his chair due to the constantly fluctuating temperatures, his lightning no more accurate than his frantic swings.

Watch as Kenny, the one who had always been the strongest of them, who knew almost everything, failed to land any meaningful damage. As Renren, who never ran out of ideas, through spell after spell at her, all to no avail.

He could only watch, as fire and ice kept crashing down on the only friends he’d ever had, knocking them to the ground with nothing more than sheer magical power.

Even Koro-chan, who was never bothered even by the strongest of flames, was brought low by the intense chills of Shadow Rise’s ice.

And Teddie simply stood there on the sidelines, next to an exhausted girl dressed in white, without any powers that could actually do something about this.

Something told him that this wasn’t an issue that could be solved by pushing his friends through a television stack.

“Renren!” He called out, as the last fighter who was still upright toppled to the ground, bearly able to push himself back up again. The Wild Card looked up at him, glasses slightly askew.

“Teddie, you need to leave. Take Rise-san and go!” He ordered, as if Teddie were a part of the battle himself, despite having no way of helping anyone.

“B-but what about you?” He took a step forward without thinking about it, only realizing that he’d even done so by the soft squeak his feet made whenever they hit the ground.

“W-we’ll be fine,” Renren insisted, but even if Teddie hadn’t been able to sense emotions, it would still be easy to feel that he was lying. He didn’t seem confident at all. “Just go!”

“B-but… but I…” One step forward. Two. Teddie had no idea what he was doing, but he also couldn’t bring himself to stop. “I can’t leave you here! I don’t want to be alone again!” And, before he knew it, he was running, stumbling, almost tripping over his own paws, and yet not stopping until he stood directly in front of Shadow, shaking as he realized just what position he’d put himself in.

“T-Teddie?” Even without looking at Kenny, Teddie could feel the fear coming off of him in waves, more fear than he’d ever felt before, with the pawsible exception of that one time in Yuki-chan’s castle when she had him and Renren fight a powerful knight. “W-what are you…?”

He couldn’t answer, if only because he didn’t really know the answer himself. Or, he did, but… he couldn’t put it into words. Or maybe he just didn’t want to.

It was a hard thing to admit, that he’d rather die than be on his own.

The Shadow just laughed, as if she couldn’t imagine a world where such a little bear could be any sort of threat to her. Her attack was still charging, still prebeared to wipe all of them from the face of the world, and it didn’t look like there was anything Teddie could do to stop it.

That didn’t mean, however, that he wasn’t about to try. He charged forward, desperately reaching for any power he could muster, until he found the emotion that had once been the entirety of his being, as the Shadow’s weapon fired.

For one, blistering moment, his world became pain.

* * *

  
  


When the light faded, Rise’s Shadow had returned to her humanoid shape, sitting on top of a stage that was, as far as anyone could tell, wrecked beyond all repair.

“Wh-what was that…?” Ren breathed out, so quietly that Ken could barely hear it.

“That’s… I don’t know.” He replied without thinking about it, eyes frantically scanning the room in search of a scrap of blue fur, a pair of twitching ears… or, gods forbid, a black puddle sinking into the ground. “Where’s Teddie?” That was the most important thing, wasn’t it?

“Ow…” An immediate, crushing sense of relief overwhelmed Ken, as he turned to see the little bear picking himself up from the ground, his body pressed flat, as thin as a sheet of paper. “Did I- Did I win?” He mumbled, very unsteady on his feet.

“Y-yeah, I’m pretty sure you did.” He walked over to him, silently praying that Rise did literally anything other than deny her Shadow again. He was sure they wouldn’t be able to survive another fight with her. “Here, let me…” Kala-Nemi appeared before Ken’s fingers could touch his forehead, so desperate he was to make sure Teddie was safe. He cast Mediarahan, certain that, if there were ever a time for the most powerful healing spells in his arsenal, this was it. “Just… don’t ever scare us like that again, okay? I- I thought…”

Teddie blinked at him. “You were… worried about me?”

“Why wouldn’t I be!? It’s- you almost- ...Teddie, you could have died!” He didn’t think he needed to explain how that would be a bad thing. Even ignoring the emotional toll of watching someone die for their sakes, they sort of needed him alive to give them a way back out of this world.

“But we’re all okay! See? Even my-” Teddie paused, taking in the sight of his own paw, before his eyes widened to the size of literal dinnerplates. “Ack! My fur! My precious, beautiful fur!”

Ken couldn’t help but laugh. “Do you think we could fix it if you took your head off?”

“This isn’t funny, Kenny! What if it never goes back to how it was?”

If it didn’t… well, Ken couldn’t say he’d miss the squeaking. He was sure that was part of how Shadows kept noticing them before they were ready. But it would be sort of sad, even if it was preferable to the alternative. “We’ll figure it out. I promise.”

They’d already done this much for the little Shadow. What was just a bit more?

* * *

  
  


While Ken fussed over Teddie, Ren gave more immediate worry to Rise. “I think I understand now,” She was saying, pushing herself to her feet despite how much she swayed, and the fact that, in all likelihood, it had been days since she’d last eaten something. “All of this time, I’ve been searching for the ‘real’ me, but… she doesn’t exist. There is no one real Rise.”

He sort of understood what she was getting at. How could he not, when being a Wild Card was the biggest, most important thing he could bring to a battle? But when she put it like that… it still sounded really sad. And maybe there was a reason for that.

“That isn’t a bad thing, you know,” He spoke up, Arsene reclaiming his usual spot at the forefront of his soul. “With so many pieces, it’s harder to find something that’ll fit. But you’ll also have more chances for it to be there.” Sure, it could be painful, at times, to shuffle through so many Personas at once, but it meant that at least he was prepared for any situation.

“Right.” She nodded. “There’s no one me to find… because all of this… it’s all a part of me. Everything I see here is me.”

Prompted by her words, the Shadow nodded, and Rise’s new Persona appeared. She looked a bit like a satellite dish, but Ren got the feeling it wouldn’t be particularly helpful to point that out.

Rise reached out as the card drifted down to her, pulling it close to herself as it vanished. “This is… my Persona?” She still sounded pretty confused by the whole thing.

Ren simply nodded, not sure what else there was to say.

For a moment, everything seemed like it was going to turn out okay.

But just for a moment. The world wasn’t kind enough to make it be that easy.

* * *

  
  


Thinking back, Ken wasn’t entirely sure when the newest Shadow had shown up. For all he knew, the taller, thinner bear with sharper angles could have been hiding in the corners waiting for a chance to speak, or it could have simply manifested in the moment. He couldn’t tell.

Either way, this second bear towered over their Teddie, humanlike eyes that glowed a more obvious gold than on any of the other Shadows they had faced.

“Real? Me?” The Shadow of a Shadow asked, in a voice wholly unlike that of the being it had come from. His ears twitched, but unlike when their Teddie did it, here it was just menacing.

Ken hadn’t even known it was possible for someone to twitch their ears menacingly, and yet, there they were. Honestly, though, this was just another part of a really long day.

Teddie stepped back. “What are you- what do you think you’re trying to say?”

“Did you not hear what that girl said? ‘There is no real me.’ If that is true for her… You must certainly be aware of what it means for you...” Oh, no. Ken had enough problems today without having to deal with Teddie’s little existential crisis.

“I-I don’t know what you mean,” The bear stammered out, though he refused to look his Shadow in the eye.

“You distract yourself with trivial things, games and books and toys, but the facts remain. You are nothing. Empty. A hollow existence, which carries no meaning. There is no purpose for you in this world. There is no reason for you to exist. And nothing that you can do to change this.”

Maybe it would be a good idea to intervene. If only he could figure out how.

Teddie quailed under his Shadow’s gaze. “I… I… You’re wrong! I’m not-”

“How can you be so sure, if you claim ignorance of what you are?” In hindsight, Ken supposed that maybe it would have been a good thing to, at some point, bring up the fact that Teddie was a Shadow. Even if it was one of those things that would probably be rude to mention. “But, then, that is blissful, isn’t it? Unaware of that which would surely cause your… friends… to desert you.”

“U-um, actually…” Ken had never managed to successfully interject against a Shadow before, mostly due to never having any idea what to say, but he supposed there was a first time for everything. “I kind of… already know? It was… sort of obvious…” And now the air was colder than it was when Mitsuru was angry, which was honestly terrifying.

Teddie blinked at him. “You… know? Know what?” Okay, was there any way to put this tactfully? Any way at all?

“That… well… you see…” This was not how he’d wanted to have this conversation. He’d never wanted to have this conversation to begin with, because he’d already had more than enough awkward conversations with teammates to last him a lifetime.

“...And you say that you seek the truth.” Teddie’s Shadow sounded like he was more disappointed than anything else. Honestly, it was hard to blame him. Ken just wasn’t good at talking about these things. “Yet you still try so hard to deny it.” He turned back to the regular Teddie. “There is no reason for you to be here. You are but a mere-”

“Shut up!” Teddie shouted, stomping a foot on the ground, devoid of his usual squeak. “That’s not what I am! It’s not!” Ken was sure that, if the bear could cry, there would be lines of tears streaming down his face. “And you’re not me!”

His Shadow gave a low, rumbling laugh, and then the world turned to ice.

In a way, Ken supposed that was only to be expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I honestly considered having the team be able to talk Teddie around into accepting his Shadow without a fight... but he has a bit of growing up to do still, and also the person closest to him was a member of SEES, and is therefore contractually obligated to be unable to communicate.
> 
> ...I'm not sure, but I think the chapter title might be a bit of an understatement.


	43. In Which Proper Communication Finally Happens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It turns out that maybe they should have brought up certain things a bit sooner...

A giant hole sat in the center of the room, where Shadow Rise’s stage used to be. In this hole lurked a mighty beast, a giant Shadow bear with one broken eye, beyond which lurked another one that, just by looking at it, could easily be recognized as not belonging.

**“I am a Shadow, the true self,”** His voice echoed, in a way that was wrong, more wrong than any Shadow the group had faced had sounded before.  **“Your journey for the truth has led you here… and now you shall perish.”**

It went without saying that ice probably wouldn’t work on him. Ren tried to figure out if he had any Personas immune to that element which had some other form of attack.

...No he did not. But he could bring Jack Frost forward, maybe, and then start throwing fireworks, and it would probably work just as well as anything else.

He swapped Personas just in time, as the most powerful wave of ice magic he’d ever witnessed came crashing down on him, simply plinking off his body as his chosen Persona worked to negate his natural weakness.

“This is bad…” He heard Ken say. “It’s almost as cold as Mitsuru-san when someone’s just said something to make her really angry!” Ren had exactly no point of reference for this, but he could at least understand that this was very far from a good thing.

“Almost?” Yukiko asked, drifting away from the topic of how they were supposed to help Teddie when such a large Shadow was in their way. “What’s it like when she’s upset, then?”

“You probably wouldn’t like it! She’s the best person at using ice magic I know!” And then the conversation was broken again as another sheet of ice was thrown their way.

Ren looked at the giant bear before him, and wondered where would be a good place to start stabbing until he turned back to normal. Honestly, he could probably start anywhere and it would work, but he needed to get the maximum effect, especially since he couldn’t figure out anything about this enemy just by looking at it, let alone if there was anything he was weak to.

...He’d never realized just how much he relied on Teddie until now. It was just so relieving, knowing that, even if he forgot what to do against a Shadow, there was someone there that would still do his best to remember for him.

Behind him, Rise stood up, and there was a flash of blue light. “Would you like my help?” She offered. “I saw what that bear was doing for you earlier, and I can do the same thing. You’ve already done so much to help me, I might as well do this in return.”

Ren found himself smiling. At least this one thing was going his way. “Thank you, Rise-san.”

They’d originally come to help her, but now…

They had a bear to save.

* * *

  
  


At this point, Ken was wondering why he kept being surprised by the kinds of things that Shadows could do. It was easy enough for him to accept that they could be people- Ryoji and Teddie were both very compelling pieces of evidence- but he still hadn’t thought that through to the logical conclusion- that a Shadow who was a person could also have a Shadow of their own.

He probably should have. Dogs could have Personas, robots could have Personas… Maybe there really wasn’t any sort of limit on who could use one, so long as they were in the right state of mind. Whatever that was.

Either way, the proof was right in front of him. A Shadow, born from another Shadow, and just as dangerous as the ones they’d faced before, if not more so. A Shadow that could dive into the earth and emerge, carrying energy that held, within itself, a great deal of power.

“That energy…” Rise breathed, quietly, Himiko’s very existence causing it to carry to where it could be heard. “You have to guard now! If you do that, it won’t hurt you at all!”

Ken supposed he'd have to trust her on this. She did, after all, seem to be a Navigator.

He also supposed that meant he could finally give Mitsuru a clear no on ever having to send Fuuka down to Inaba. If they felt the need to seek out Persona Users, they now had someone they knew was in the area who could do just that.

Just as she’d said, as soon as he put himself on guard, the giant paw passed right through him, as if it had never been there to begin with. The whole thing gave him chills worse than the ice magic.

This… he’d never faced a Shadow like this. He hadn’t ever considered the possibility.

But then… he’d also never expected to meet a Shadow like Teddie.

Summoning Kala-Nemi once more, Ken hoisted his spear, and got back to work.

They weren’t going to lose this fight. They couldn't afford to.

* * *

  
  


It probably said something about Ren that his first response to hearing that the Shadow’s weak points were in the eyes was to throw lit fireworks into them. It didn’t respond quite as badly as he would while using Jack Frost, but there was still something to be said for large amounts of explosives. Mostly that they looked cool.

A Bufudyne came his way, but like all the other ice spells, it just plinked off. Teddie’s Shadow didn’t seem to notice, simply continuing on his rampage.

He wondered how the others were doing. As long as he kept a very note of what was going on, he was basically invincible, but the other members of the group weren’t so lucky.

He took a moment to check. They weren’t the best off- far from it- but Yukiko seemed to be the only one at continual risk of unconsciousness, and he’d sort of figured that would happen. Elemental weaknesses weren’t exactly fun to have.

Grinning, he pulled another set of fireworks out of his bag. Sure, things really, really weren’t great by now… but it was hard to deny that the explosions were very cool.

* * *

  
  


It turned out that there were very few problems that couldn’t be solved through liberal applications of explosives. Ken wasn’t sure this was a lesson he wanted the others to pick up on, but it was just a bit too late to have doubts about that when Ren was throwing fireworks.

It would be hard to say that the Shadow itself exploded. It just wasn’t a good description, even if it was visually similar, but then the Shadow returned to the form he had taken before, standing at the edge of the hole where the stage once was.

It was easy to see that, if there had ever been shows at this place, there wouldn’t be anymore.

“Teddie?” Ken approached the flattened bear, who was shivering, just a little, despite the fact that he never seemed to feel the cold. “Are you okay?”

“I-I’m… I’m not…” He couldn’t seem to move a sentence past that.

“It’s all right.” This wasn’t exactly a time to hold stuff back, was it? Except… how was he supposed to say this kind of thing? Aigis wasn’t exactly a good example. “It’s going to be okay.”

“You know, unless you end up doing something really stupid,” Kanji interjected. “Then we might be in a bit of trouble.” This probably wasn’t helping. “Please don’t make us fight that thing again.”

Teddie looked up, eyes still shining despite the clear lack of any tear ducts. “But… he said…”

“He’s... not wrong, though,” Yukiko commented, in basically the complete opposite way from what Ken had been considering. “Ken-kun’s right, it is sort of obvious.”

He hadn’t even realized that Yukiko had figured it out. But then, it wasn’t like there had been a lot of other possibilities.

“I… figured out you were a Shadow back when we first met,” He admitted, figuring that things probably weren’t going to get any better from here. It… actually felt better, saying it out loud, instead of just standing back and letting the bear have an existential crisis all on his lonesome.

“I figured it out after a while, too,” Ren added. “It… probably shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, really, but I was busy. ...Kanji-san?”

“...Yeah, I knew. Wasn’t exactly hard- nothing else lives here.”

“Y-you all knew!?” Teddie’s shock was, for once, probably not exaggerated. “And you- you still like me?” And of course it all came down to that, didn’t it?

“Why wouldn’t we like you?” Ren asked. “You’re great.”

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed, bounding over to Teddie but not jumping on him. Probably because if he did that, the bear would just fall over. At least he could recognize that much, if that was the case.

“I- I thought… I thought if I was a Shadow, none of you would like me!” It was at times like this that Ken really wished Teddie could cry, if only because there was only so much he could take of him being on the verge of tears, and still not shedding any. “Y-you really don’t mind? I-I’m so happy…!”

Despite all past evidence that said it shouldn’t have been possible, tears began to fall. There was a bright blue light from the area where the stage had been, but nobody said anything about it just yet.

Ren stood up, and fumbled with his bag for a moment before pulling out a Goho-M. “Come on, everyone. Let’s go home.”

* * *

  
  


“It comes to mind,” Yukiko commented, as they managed to support Rise back to the studio, “That most Shadows… really don’t like Persona Users.”

“Honestly, I’m not sure they’re big on humans in general…” Kanji mused. “What about it?”

“Well… Teddie has a Persona now. Maybe… maybe it won’t be safe for him to stay here anymore. I mean, I haven’t seen anything attack him yet, but…” Well, he’d only been a Persona User for… fifteen minutes, at most. Not a lot of time for things to happen.

“Do we have anywhere else for him to stay, though?” Ken asked. “Even if my uncle’s not around often enough to notice anything strange, there’s barely enough room in the house for everyone who’s living there already.”

“My parents probably wouldn’t notice…” Ren noted. “But… I still wouldn’t want them to see me with a giant plush bear. I’m… not sure how I’d explain that, if it came up.”

“I can take him,” Kanji volunteered. “Ma wouldn’t think much about it, as long as he doesn’t talk when she’s around. ...Hey, Ted, you wanna come home with me?”

“With… you?” His ears twitched. “To your world?”

“Be more fun than if you just sat around here doing nothing, wouldn’t it?” He pointed out. “I could show you how to knit stuff, if you want, or make models, or… I mean, if you’d like...”

Immediately, a new tower of television sets appeared. Ren’s eyes narrowed. “That wouldn’t take us to the TV we normally use, would it?”

“...No…”

“...We’re going the rest of the way back. I don’t want to just show up in some random person’s living room or something…”

Still… it was, at least, an easy answer to decipher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, I'm sure that, in canon, if anyone had thought to ask Teddie sooner if he wanted to come home with them, he would have agreed almost immediately. Just for the sake of not being alone.
> 
> As Yosuke does not have a Persona here, Kanji and Teddie are now roommates. This is probably not something I will regret later.


	44. In Which They All Go Home

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddie takes one step into the human world, and immediately falls in love with it.
> 
> Also, Nanako's asking some heavy questions again.

The human world was… loud. And colorful. From the moment he stepped into it, Teddie was surrounded by new sensations, and he twisted around, trying to make sense of all of them.

“This is… your world?” There was so much to see, and he’d only just gotten there! “It’s amazing!” He’d just gotten here, and it was already so lively!

“You’ve hardly seen any of it,” Renren pointed out, smiling slightly as he said so. “This is just… just a store, really. Even if it is the biggest one in Inaba.” Did he not see how many colors there were, all in one place? All of the different sounds, emanating from bearious sources? All of the new smells, which he couldn’t even begin to track? It was a bear’s paradise.

Kenny shrugged. “We did pick him up in a place that didn’t exactly have other people. I bet he’ll be looking around at everything for the next month.”

“Arf!” Koro-chan conveyed, somehow, that Teddie would have been even more excited if they had lived in a big city like he and Kenny came from. But then, Koro-chan could convey a lot of things with simple barking, as did Miss Fox with her yips. Were all animals like this?

Kanji sighed. “Would be great if I didn’t have to explain a bear suit looking around amazed at everything… but I guess it could be worse.” Right! He could not get to see this new world! And he wanted to see everything about it! “...You think anyone will notice him coming out of the store?”

“They still haven’t noticed us carrying weapons,” Yuki-chan noted. “It should be fine.”

Rise-chan blinked. “They… haven’t? But… Kanji-kun carries a chair around, Ken-kun has a spear… and what about the dog and fox?”

“Yeah, they don’t notice Koro-chan or the fox, either…” Kanji paused, struck by a tenable current of confusion. “...Why doesn’t anyone notice them?”

“Don’t question it,” Kenny advised them. “If you do, they might start noticing, and then we’ll have to find a new place to meet up. Though I’m… surprised it hasn’t happened already… Rise-san, do you need any help getting home, or anything? Or… I guess there might be some police to deal with, it’s been a couple days since you went missing...”

“I-I should be fine,” Rise-chan said. “I… think you all just need to go home and rest. Even without using Himiko, I can still feel that you’re exhausted.”

“You got that right...” Kanji mumbled. “Come on, Ted, let’s get you home. Need to… figure this stuff out real quick. Maybe get some food on the way. Think you’ll want anything?”

“...I like topsicles,” He finally decided, following after Kanji through the isles of electronics. “Can we get topsicles?”

“...Sure, why not?”

“Yay!”

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: Today has been a very, very strange day. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...I assume you wouldn’t be contacting me unless you wanted to tell me about it. _

_ Amada Ken: Right. Anyway, so someone else ended up in the TV, we got her out, that’s… almost normal, now. But… you remember Teddie, right? Cute little bear Shadow? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: He is fairly memorable, yes. _

_ Amada Ken: He has a Persona now. And is moving in with Kanji-san. This is going to go either really well or really badly, and I’m not sure which one yet. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...Are you trying to tell me that a Shadow somehow managed to navigate a department store without inciting a panic? _

_ Amada Ken: It’s Teddie. If someone panics at seeing Teddie, they have bigger problems than the existence of Shadows. Also, nobody at Junes notices anything. How do you think we keep getting away with carrying weapons through the place? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: This is not making me any less concerned about the state of affairs in Inaba. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Would it help if I told you the person we saved is a real Navigator? _

“What are you doing?” Nanako asked, appearing over the side of the couch. In hindsight, maybe Ken shouldn’t have been texting about Persona-related things in the middle of the living room.

“I’m talking to Mitsuru-san,” he explained. “Actually, I’m just finishing up with that.”

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: It does a little, but not nearly enough. I’m always going to worry about you. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Thanks. Anyway, I think Nanako wants to talk to me about something. I should see what it is. I’ll talk to you later. _

He slid his phone back into his pocket, glancing up at Nanako. “Is there anything you wanted?”

“Well…” She shifted from side to side, a perfect picture of uncertainty, as whatever was on the television continued in the background. “Could you tell me what a ‘real’ family is?”

Ken wasn’t sure he wanted to know what brought this up. “Um… I think that depends on who you ask.”

“What do you mean?” She sat down next to him. As if she thought he’d be able to explain it without a problem.

“Well…” He took a moment to think about how he was going to say it. “People can mean different things, when they talk about family. Like… you remember Akihiko-san and Shinjiro-san, right?”

She nodded. “They were really nice. Just like you said!” It was nice to know they’d left a good impression on Nanako, since she was the only relative of his they’d had the chance to meet.

“Right. Well, technically speaking, the two of them aren’t related at all… but if you were to ask them, they’d tell you that they’re brothers. They’re basically twins, even if they’re a month apart.” Admittedly, there was just about no chance of anyone new getting what he was referring to anymore, but it still fit. “And then there’s Minato-san and Kotone-san.”

“I remember Kotone-san,” Nanako commented. “I liked her. I’m… not sure who Minato-san is, though.” Right, he’d never gotten around to it.

“He’s… another one of my senpai. We’re not really close, but… it’s easy to see that he’s not all that good at saying no to people, that’s how… Never mind.” Something told him Minato wouldn’t be happy with him if he were to share that story. “He and Kotone-san are… sort of the opposite of Akihiko-san and Shinjiro-san. They actually are twins, but… well, it’s not that they hate each other or anything, they just don’t particularly care about each other.”

If anything, this just made Nanako seem more confused. “They don’t? Why not?”

Ken shrugged, because the exact specifics about how those two had gotten to be the way they were was something that would probably fly over the head of a six-year-old. “It’s… they never really had the chance to spend time together, I guess, and by the time they did, they didn’t really have that much in common… or something. It’s complicated.” And honestly, he wasn’t sure how much of it he was actually allowed to say, given how messed-up it had all been.

She nodded along. “All… all right. I don’t… really understand.”

“...I guess it did get a bit long,” He admitted. “Your real family is what you want it to be. That’s all there is to it. It’s just that some people think it needs to be a lot more complicated than that. Does that make sense to you?”

“A bit… that means Dad’s my real dad… and you’re my real big brother!” It was impossible not to smile when he heard that. “I’m… part of your family, too, right, Big Bro?”

“Of course you are.” It was just about impossible to refuse Nanako.

“And Dad?” Ken found himself unable to answer. “It’s… it’s okay if he’s not quite ‘real’ to you. Sometimes, I dunno if we’re really ‘real’ to him, either.”

Sometimes, he really, really wished it was easier to argue with Nanako.

* * *

  
  


Kanji hadn’t realized just how much stuff the group had all given Teddie until he was standing there, in his room, emptying the contents of his body onto the floor, slowly returning to his usual shape from the introduction of air like Ken had suggested.

There were puzzles, books, puzzle books… at least one coloring book that had been completely filled, markers… They were going to need someplace to put all of this.

Teddie put his head back on. “It- it’s okay for me to have my things out, right? It gets uncomfortable if I carry them like that for too long.”

“It- it’s fine.” He’d volunteered to let the bear stay with him, that involved sharing a certain amount of space. “I’ll… try and get you a shelf or something soon, though, so you have an actual place for them… wouldn’t want to lose or step on anything, right?”

It’d be good for if Teddie ended up interested in those model kits he hadn’t gotten around to making, too. It seemed like the sort of thing that he’d enjoy, so that just made getting proper storage even more important.

“Right.” Teddie nodded, and started examining himself. “It’s good my fur’s back to normal… it’s still pretty charred, though.”

“I think we can fix that by… wait, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to put you through the wash…” Shadows could survive some strange things, but something told him it would be better to just take their chances with the bathtub. “...We can figure it out tomorrow.” Along with everything else.

One thing was for sure, though. From now on, Kanji’s life would certainly not be boring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken's thoughts on the subject of family are... complicated, for a number of reasons. Not least of which being that he's basically SEES' collective little brother.
> 
> ...I think Teddie's going to be just fine.


	45. In Which Some Kids Sit In A Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone just tries to relax and go about life.
> 
> Some manage it a lot better than others.

It was a bright, sunny day, Rise was safe, and Ken had brought Ren over to his house so they could snack on vegetables from the garden.

“You can’t have all of them, though,” He warned. “Nanako might still need some of them for class.” Ren had heard that elementary classes that did well enough could have gardening projects, but he’d never seen one in progress before. His class hadn’t been good enough to get one.

Not that it really mattered. Thinking about it, he probably would have killed the plants before the week was out. “And I guess we’ll need some for ourselves, if something happens.”

Ken nodded and pocketed a radish. Ren knew that those worked the same as Goho-Ms, somehow, so he decided not to question it. “My uncle helps us with it, sometimes, but he’s not home often enough for it to be a regular thing.”

That was right. Ken’s uncle was one of the detectives working on the murder case, not that it was very helpful for finding clues. “I suppose we’ve been keeping him busy.”

“...Honestly, with how quickly we find the missing people, I think we’re giving him more free time. He just doesn’t use it.” Ken sat down, carefully maneuvering so he didn’t crush any tomatoes. “It… probably says something that I’ve been living here for months, and barely know a thing about him. It’s probably not a good thing, but… That’s how it is.”

Ren settled down as well, sheltered by giant corn stalks. They probably shouldn’t have been growing that large or that quickly, but maybe it had to do with them being tended to by a Persona User. It was just one of those things that didn’t need asking about. They got veggies, was the important part. “What sort of things do you know about him?”

“It’s just… things like his job, or what coffee he likes. Stuff like that. Nothing… nothing really big, or important.” Koromaru padded up to him, and he scratched him behind the ears.

Ren wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to this. He understood what it was like, being overlooked all the time, but… that didn’t make it any easier to talk about. “I suppose he doesn’t know much more about you, either,” He stated, instead.

“I mean, he’s probably picked up a few things…” Ken didn’t sound entirely convinced of it, himself, but Ren still nodded along. “But… I talk to my senpai a lot more than I talk to him. Even not counting the things I can’t tell him about, they still know more about what I’ve been doing.”

Given how his senpai all lived hours away, that wasn't a good sign. “They… must care about you a lot,” He said, not sure if there was a better way to put it.

“I know. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t have kept me around, after…” He trailed off. “They were the first people in a long time to really care what happened to me. It just… took longer for me to notice that than it should have. That they cared, for reasons other than my Persona, or Shinjiro-san’s guilt complex.”

“...What was that you just said?” He didn’t think he could have heard that correctly.

“It… it’s nothing. Nothing important, anyway… it doesn’t matter anymore.” And he’d just have to trust him on that. The Justice Social Link grew stronger.

Somehow, Ren knew that this meant the bond between them had grown halfway to… to something, that he couldn’t quite name yet. He had links that grew faster, but so far none of them had reached that nebulous endpoint of ten yet.

He was getting curious to see what happened when they did.

* * *

  
  


Shu was one of those links that was advancing fairly quickly, but in a worrying direction. “You know, I really liked things before Amada showed up,” He stated past some books.

“You mean you don’t like them now?” He asked, just to be sure.

“It’s… I had less to worry about, before he came here. I was… easily the smartest person in the room, and now… Mom’s asking why it’s so hard for me to stay at the top of the class now.”

“Ken-senpai does know a lot of stuff,” Ren agreed. “About some things… he probably knows a lot more than anyone else in the school, even if he’s only in seventh grade.”

“Probably learned it in the city…” Shu muttered, and it was hard to disagree.

“He did say he picked up a lot of stuff from his senpai. And I guess it only makes sense, since they were taking care of him up until he moved here. They even still talk to him, even though they don’t really see each other anymore.” That was as far as he could go with that.

Shu paused, as though thinking about this, silently adjusting his glasses. “...If the people who he was staying with before still care about him, why does he live here now? I…”

“...Nakajima-senpai?” Was this another thing he needed to worry about?

“...I guess it makes sense that Amada’s doing so well. After all, he must have a lot of people to please.” This was definitely a very worrying direction for this conversation to take, but Ren wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it. Shu wasn’t a very open person.

But he was open enough for Ren to get the sense that he was making progress.

For now, that would have to be enough.

* * *

  
  


Shirogane Naoto, at this point, was tired of looking through everything in Inaba and still never finding any clues. There was never any new evidence, just more and more mysteries.

“You’re saying you don’t remember a thing about the days you were gone,” She repeated, desperately wishing that, one day, something would happen that would make all of this make sense. So far, it didn’t seem to be happening. It had been this way for months now.

Kujikawa Rise shook her head, looking surprisingly chipper for someone who had most likely been recently kidnapped. “Nope. One moment, I was minding the store, and the next…” She snapped her fingers. “Gone. I’m really lucky Yukiko-senpai found me, or else I... wouldn’t have realized anything had happened until I got home and Grandma started fussing, probably.”

The Yukiko that she was talking about was presumably Amagi Yukiko, who was currently the closest thing the police had to a suspect. She had spent a decently large amount of time in proximity to the first victim, went to the same school as the second, and had disappeared for a day shortly afterwards, during which she never gave anything more than vagaries about her location.

Not that she was the only one Tatsumi Kanji had vanished for a bit, as well, but he was a known delinquent, and his attendance at school had actually improved a lot since then.

It was also not uncommon to see him in the same place as Amagi Yukiko.

...Naoto needed to get off that line of thought now, before she fell down the rabbit hole of Adachi’s conspiracy theories. How that man managed to stay employed, she had no idea…

“...I see. Thank you for your time.” She nodded to Rise, and turned to leave the store. She didn’t have much interest in tofu at the moment, and she needed to… well, okay, some people would probably have told her to relax, but she’d never really been great with that, much to her grandfather’s displeasure. But she could take a walk, and that would be close enough.

When she neared the textile shop, Naoto noticed something that looked like a person in a colorful costume hop a few steps out the side door, before having their arm grabbed and pulled back in.

...She forced herself to keep walking. Something told her she didn’t want to know.

* * *

  
  


Yukiko was used to boys she didn’t really know approaching her, usually saying some kind of inane thing. When they did, she tended to brush them off as quickly as she could, Yosuke being the only one who stuck around for any great length of time, and that was mostly just because he got along with Chie roughly a fifth of the time.

Once pushed away, those people tended not to come back, possibly because they were intimidated by Chie. It was hard to blame them. Yukiko would say her friend’s stares were frosty, if she hadn’t met Kirijo Mitsuru and seen what a real ice-cold gaze looked like.

Today, however, Yukiko was not with Chie at the moment, and she was approached by a vaguely-familiar boy with empty eyes.

“Hello… Yuki,” He said, in a voice just as empty as his eyes. It was sort of unnerving, honestly, and made Yukiko wonder why he was only vaguely familiar- surely, she would have remembered meeting someone who was like this.

Her eyes narrowed. “I never said you could call me that. Who are you?” Konohana Sakuya was burning brightly, telling her not to bother with this boy, to move away and stay away, as far as possible.

The boy just stared at her unblinking. “You don’t remember me?” There was something very, very wrong about the way he looked at her, and it was taking all of Yukiko’s self control not to either run away or summon her Persona to… deal with the problem.

“I’m leaving,” She declared, turning around and moving back down the street a bit more quickly than she perhaps needed, but then, this was probably how horror stories tended to start, and she wanted to stay far away from that. She already lived in the Japanese equivalent to Silent Hill, what more did the world want?

Konohana Sakuya smoldered at the indignity of being driven away by just a random boy, even one that seemed clearly wrong, but it was fine. There were other routes they could take, and it would probably be just the one time.

After all, what were the odds of her ever running into him again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No, Naoto hasn't been having a great year, why do you ask?
> 
> Mitsuo's design does very well at being forgettable, but whenever he shows up you just know there's something wrong with him. Someone probably should have picked up on that before he ended up committing murder.


	46. In Which Life Doesn't Get Any Easier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They try to make things better. They really do.
> 
> It's just that things tend not to work out that way.

Yukiko found that forgetting about the boy with the empty eyes was a task much easier said than done. The encounter had been too unnerving to simply erase from her mind- even now, Konohana Sakuya still smoldered, and she wasn’t about to stop the blaze.

Chie had been dabbling in various martial arts ever since the first time she saw an action film, and while that probably didn’t mean a lot to most people who were serious combatants, Yukiko was aware of both her friend’s dedication, and her own potential need for a way of defending herself that did not involve copious amounts of fire and destruction.

“You know, I didn't think you’d ever offer to train with me like this,” Chie remarked, stretching out by the riverbank. “So why are you doing this now?”

“It just… felt like a good idea.” She didn’t want to tell Chie about the boy with empty eyes. Either he’d never show up again, and it wouldn’t matter, or it’d sent her on a crusade.

Nobody liked it when Chie went on a crusade. The fact that she had yet to get in trouble for picking fights in high school was mostly due to the sheer amount of trouble she got in for picking fights in elementary and middle school. Also a lack of things to crusade about. It would be best not to give her one.

“Well, in that case, I guess I could give you some beginner’s lessons…” As if Chie was anywhere near qualified to teach martial arts. “Though I don’t know if you’ll ever need it. After all, if something happens, you can just come to me, and I can handle it.”

She sounded so proud of herself, Yukiko decided not to mention that she had the ability to light things on fire with her soul, and had been using this power regularly in order to defend herself. “Yes, but it’s better to be safe, isn’t it?”

“I suppose. All right, let’s start off with a basic stance…”

* * *

  
  


Sadly, according to Kanji, there would be a lot of issues if Teddie were to wander freely around Inaba. He sort of got it- he didn’t exactly look human, and apparently there would be a lot of issues if people saw an empty costume walking about- but he still wasn’t enjoying being stuck in a small space like this.

At least he wasn’t quite so lonely. When Kanji was gone, he could just turn on the television, and then he could at least have some background noise, so long as it wasn’t loud enough that Mama Tatsumi could hear it.

Teddie didn’t think that would end up being a problem. He had beary good ears.

Right then, he was building a model train. He’d never actually seen a train before, of course, but Renren said that he used one to mess about with his Personas, and that clearly meant that trains had to be good things.

He just hoped it’d look right in the end. Kanji had given him the model and told him to do whatever he liked with it, but he wanted it to look nice. It was like one of the puzzles he’d carried around with him, only bigger, stickier, and with lots more ways to mess up.

“Fortunately, I have a secret weapon…” He mused to himself, taking a step back to look at his progress so far. “Dexterity!” With that declaration, he stepped on a yellow marker, lost his balance, and toppled over backwards. “Ow…”

There was some sort of movement outside of Kanji’s room. Teddie lay silent, wondering if he’d made a bit too much noise and was about to be discovered, but then he heard the sound of footsteps fading away into the distance, and nothing after that, and let out an audible sigh of relief. That was too close! He’d almost been scared out of his fur!

Except… not really, because there was nothing inside his fur. That was why he was staying here all day, at least until they could work out something else.

Pushing that thought out of his head, Teddie rolled over, pushed himself back up, and got back to work on his model train. Maybe he’d ask Renren what his magic Persona train looked like, and paint the model to look like that. That sounded nice.

He’d just have to ask the next time Renren came to visit.

* * *

  
  


“You have registered a large number of Personas in your Compendium,” Lavenza remarked, flipping through the pages of the book that effectively contained Ren’s soul.

Ren shrugged. “If I have a new Persona, that’s something new I can learn about, or a new power I can use.” And it was helpful, to have more power. “Though… I don’t think anything can really replace Arsene.” He wasn’t particularly inclined to even try.

“I wouldn’t expect it could. Arsene is, after all, the Persona born from the depths of your own heart. Gathered fragments of other souls, even those created here, cannot compare to the powers of your own heart.” Was that what those other Personas were?

...Honestly, it didn’t make that much less sense than the other possibilities.

“But… Arsene’s not that strong.” It took Marie’s Skill Cards to help him develop his abilities beyond the very basics, and he still wasn’t sure where this was going.

“He might not look like much now,” Igor spoke, as the train car rattled onward to a destination Ren still hadn’t been told about. “But as you, yourself, grow… so will your Persona. If all goes well, you will one day look back on this and wonder how you could have come so far.”

He still didn’t understand what he was talking about. The residents of the Velvet Room were cryptic at the best of times, and this showed no signs of changing anytime soon. But… it was a nice thought. That one day, Arsene could be as strong as Take-Mikazuchi, or Konohana Sakuya.

Maybe, one day, he’d even be as strong as Kala-Nemi. But… probably not.

It was hard to believe that Ken could ever be outpaced by anyone.

* * *

  
  


“You… brought work home?” Ken tried his hardest to sound inquisitive, rather than accusing.

His uncle nodded. “Work’s been piling up a lot, recently. And all the help we’ve been getting is this kid who’s only really interested in one thing.” He said the word ‘kid’ as if it were a bad thing.

“Kid?” He repeated, surprised that any sort of conversation about his uncle’s work had managed to make it off the ground. Before, he’d always changed the subject with mutters about his work being important, brushing Ken off as being… well, a kid.

Turning thirteen had only really changed a few things. This shouldn’t have been one of them.

“High school student. Blue hair, thinks he’s the smartest person in the room.” The blue hair part, at least, sounded familiar to Ken, and for more reasons than just knowing Minato. He’d seen a person with blue hair, he remembered, shortly before Kanji went missing.

“I… think I might have seen that person, at one point. It was when I was visiting Kanji-san for something. They were talking to each other.” Was this conversation actually getting somewhere? Were they making some sort of progress?

“...Makes sense, they’re about the same age.” Okay, so they were probably talking about the same person. Good to know. Even if blue hair wasn’t a particularly common thing. “...Anyway, that’s enough about me. It’s getting late. You should go to bed.”

This would be a lot more convincing if it weren’t for the fact that Ken remembered being allowed to stay up much later than this earlier in the week, and not even in secret to watch the Midnight Channel. He hadn’t even bothered watching the Midnight Channel.

“Tomorrow morning, will you actually be there?” He found himself asking.

He didn’t get an answer. Nor was he sure why he’d expected one.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: What do you do if you want to get to know someone, but they’re always closed off to you? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: ...Why are you asking me this? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, you managed to get through to Shinjiro-san, didn’t you? _

Really, it probably said something that, once he woke up, Kotone was one of the first people Shinjiro asked for despite the fact that even the people who didn’t have brain damage had their memories turned into something resembling pea soup.

Besides, it was the interpretation of her question that was easiest for Ken to answer without things spiralling out of control more rapidly than he was prepared to deal with.

_ Shiomi Kotone: That’s not what I was asking, and we both know it. Are you okay? Do you want me to come and get you? _

_ Amada Ken: I thought we agree that I wasn’t worth getting you all charged with kidnapping. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: I don’t remember any sort of agreement, just you saying things. _

_ Amada Ken: You let me leave, I’m pretty sure it was implied. Not that I would have minded you stopping me, but it’s really not worth the trouble. Also, I have friends here now and I don’t want them to burn down Inaba. _

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust them, it was just that there were a large number of circumstances that could end with Inaba ablaze and most of them involved Amagi Yukiko.

And even besides that, there was a murder case going on that really needed to be solved.

_ Shiomi Kotone: All right, but if you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. _

_ Amada Ken: Thanks, but I don’t think I will. Feel free to visit during summer vacation, though! _

He desperately hoped that she’d end up taking him up on that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddie's trying his best. Just give him time.
> 
> Look, out of everyone in SEES, Kotone's probably the first one who'd suggest kidnapping, followed closely by Junpei and possibly Minato if he feels like being That Guy right now. There's also Aigis, but... Sometimes, it's best not to take ideas from Aigis.


	47. In Which Kanji Has A Lot To Put Up With

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddie, for the most part, enjoys being in the human world, but there are some thing he as a problem with.
> 
> Among other things, fingers would be nice.
> 
> Honestly, that's probably the only thing keeping the world safe from Hurricane Teddie.

“The… Persona train? Oh, you mean the Velvet Room?”

Teddie nodded. “That’s right! I want to know what it looks like!”

“Well…” Renren tilted his head to the side, clearly thinking beary hard. “I guess the best way to describe it is that it’s… blue. Dark blue carpets, somewhat lighter blue curtains and seats… the walls are blue, too, but it’s a very light blue, you hardly notice it’s there.”

That was a lot of blue. Teddie’s head and paws were blue, but he couldn’t imagine what it would have been like if his whole body was that color. That would be too much blue!

“That’s what it looks like inside?” He could hardly imagine it. How would you tell anything apart?

Renren nodded. “I bet, if it had a real outside, it’d be blue, too. But… there isn’t an outside.”

“There isn’t?” His ears twitched. “Then how do you get in?”

“Well… there’s a door. But it isn’t really attached to anything. It just stands there. And the door doesn’t seem quite real, either, more like it’s… made of light. It’s blue, too, if you were wondering about that.” He hadn’t been, really. He thought it was implied. There was definitely a pattern there.

So he couldn’t really make his model train look like the one Renren got new Personas from, because the train didn’t actually look like anything on the outside, and there wasn’t exactly any kind of invisible paint. But maybe he could just paint it blue, and it could be generally understood that it was the Persona train from the color.

But then, he didn’t have to worry about things like paint just yet. There was still lots of building he had to do, a large amount of beary little fiddly bits, that he had to somehow maneuver into just the right position despite how they definitely weren’t made for bear paws.

“I see…” Teddie nodded, thinking about what he’d just learned. “Thank you, Renren.”

“It’s not a problem. You can… you can ask me anything. Anytime. Just… if there’s anything you want to know that Kanji-san can’t tell you. I know this world can be sort of confusing...”

“It can be, but it’s also really, really fun!” Even if he couldn’t go outside… “There’s just so much to do here! How do you find time for it all?” Reading, coloring, puzzles, models, knitting, skates… Teddie’s life was just so much fuller, now, than it had been before he met everyone.

“Most of us don’t. We just pick things we like and find time to do them between the things we have to do. Like school. You’re lucky you don’t have to go there.”

School… that was a place where humans went in order to learn things, right? “I dunno… there’d probably be a lot more people there.” So many friends he could make! So many things he could learn! That sounded much more interesting than sitting alone in this room all day.

Renren didn’t seem to be convinced by his logic. He wasn’t sure why. It made sense, didn’t it?

...Maybe it was just a human thing. After all, there was still a lot about them that he didn’t understand just yet. He’d figure it out eventually.

Assuming, of course, that he ever got the chance to.

* * *

  
  


Knitting needles were another one of those things that were clearly made for human fingers instead of paws. This was not, however, going to stop Teddie from doing his best to use them.

“It’s… supposed to go like this, right?” He asked, wincing as he almost jabbed himself for the fifteenth time. He wasn’t really sure he was doing it right- yarn was just so easy to tangle!

Kanji glanced over at his work, eyes scanning his first few fumbling rows. “I mean… that’s probably not too bad, for your first try?” He didn’t even sound sure of it.

“...It’s no good, isn’t it?” Teddie tried not to sound too disappointed, but he just really wanted to do this the right way. His paws, normally far more maneuverable than anyone would expect, just weren’t cooperating!

“I wouldn’t say that… Just, we might need to do something to work around you not having fingers. That’s probably the only thing really stopping you.”

It figured it would be something like that. This world, yarn and all, was built for humans. Not silly little bears who wanted nothing more than to join them, and bearcome their friend.

“But how am I supposed to do that?” They couldn’t exactly go to Junes and look, no matter how catchy the jingle was, or how little anyone seemed to notice. There was quite a distance between the shopping district and the department store.

“I dunno. Guess we’ll just have to try until something works right.” As if it could be that simple.

Teddie wanted to believe that it could. That, as soon as he found the right thing, he could knit and sew and do all sorts of small, finicky things that were meant for small, finicky fingers.

It didn't even seem so strange. After all, he could make glasses, and model trains, and work with paintbrushes, colored pencils, and puzzle pieces that kept getting lost under the table. Why would knitting be any different, just because there was yarn?

...For now, though, he’d focus on making some more glasses. Sure, there was still an unused pair, but what if Rise-chan didn’t like yellow? Maybe pink would fit her better, or blue. But which one? Maybe he’d make both, just to be sure.

...Yeah. Both would be nice.

* * *

  
  


While everything that had happened had turned Teddie’s life upside-down, glasses were familiar, and making them worked just the same as always.

Kanji still watched him, good enough at knitting not to have to pay attention to his needles. “Say, Ted, I’ve been wondering something.”

“What is it?” He was working on the blue pair first, because the design he saw going with that color was a lot simpler than the one he saw working with pink.

“Why’d you shade my lenses? I mean, they still work a lot better than if I went without, but…”

“Oh, that was to make sure I didn’t mix them up. I already had a pair of frames that could work for you, but I needed to adjust them, and change the lenses.” He wasn’t sure why’d he’d felt normal lenses wouldn’t work right for Kanji, but ignoring that could have meant Kanji couldn’t see right, and then what was even the point of glasses? “I didn’t want to give you the wrong pair.”

“...So there really is something wrong with my eyes.” He sighed and leaned back, knitting needles still clattering away. “Damn, now Yukiko-senpai’s not going to stop until I actually see somebody about it.”

Teddie wasn’t sure why Kanji made such a big deal of it. Wasn’t being able to see things important? That was why he’d started making glasses. “Is that a problem?”

“Nearest eye doctor’s in Okina. Could probably get there on my bike, if I had to, but since I live with Ma, she’d want to get involved, and that means dealing with the train…” He fell silent, except for the constant clattering of his knitting needles.

Teddie couldn’t think of any way for the conversation to continue from there. He let it die, continuing to piece together the perfect pair of blue glasses.

After he was done with them, he’d get to work on the pink.

* * *

  
  


As it turned out, a small room with a window, and a door that was closed all of the time, with two regular occupants, in the middle of the summer, had a tendency to get hot.

Teddie had never felt such unbearable heat before, except for in the sauna where everyone had been passing around cold drinks, and he’d been boiling in his fur.

Fortunately, this time there were more things to use against the cold… to an extent, at least.

“No, Ted, I’m not giving you more Topsicles. You’ve had enough.”

“But it’s so hot! It’s like I’m melting!” Besides, ice cream was tasty. He liked how cold it was.

“You’ll make yourself sick if you eat too much.” How could someone be sick from topsicles? They were so good!

“But they’re so tasty! And cold!” The cold was important! Especially with everything this hot.

“...Gonna give yourself a brain freeze, thinking like that…”

“...What’s brain freeze?” He tilted his head to the side. “That sounds fun.”

“It really isn’t…” Kanji groaned, nearly stabbing himself with a knitting needle. “...Look, the sun doesn’t reach the closet, you should be able to cool off there. ...Y’know, if I have any space.”

Teddie had his doubts that there was space in the closet. Kanji used his closet as a space for projects that he was taking a break from, or didn’t see himself finishing soon, or that just looked like they would fit the space nicely. Among other things, the floor was covered in yarn.

“I… don’t think that I’ll fit.”

“...Yeah, it was sort of a long shot. Just… maybe try and get out of the sun for a bit…”

That was a lot easier said than done. Teddie stood up, looking about for a space, but it was getting hard to focus. “Ugh… This heat’s making me all woozy…” It was just so beary hot inside his fur, he needed a way to cool off!

“...Ted? Are you okay?” Kanji sounded really worried, for some reason. “Keep stumbling around like that, you’re gonna knock something over.”

Teddie looked up at Kanji to ask what he could possibly mean by that, took another step that he hadn’t fully registered, and tripped on a marker.

His head popped off.

“Ow…” He mumbled, pushing himself off of the ground. He reached around for his head, only stopping when he could feel the fuzzy fur underneath his fingers.

...Wait. Fingers.

“Kanji! Kanji, look!” Head forgotten for now, he stood up again to show Kanji his new discovery. “I have fingers, now!” Maybe now he’d be able to knit things!

Kanji just blinked at him. “That’s- that’s what you care about? The fingers?”

“Is there something else?” He asked. Kanji sighed.

“Ted, have you looked at yourself?” At… himself? Why…?

Teddie looked down. Besides fingers, he now had hands, which were basically the same as his paws, but much less fuzzy. He liked his paws better, except then he probably wouldn’t have fingers, and as he’d seen, those were beary useful, so it was probably better to have hands.

These hands connected to wrists, to arms, leading up to a body that was definitely… “Human. I’m… human?” He could… go outside? Do human things, like go to school?

“Looks like it…” He wasn’t sure why Kanji was groaning. Wasn’t this a good thing? “How about you just… sit here for a bit… and I can go get you some clothes.” Right. Humans looked at you funny if you went around not wearing anything.

"Could you get me some topsicles, too?"

"I already told you, you've had enough. Just stay here for now, and maybe I'll give you a bottle of water or something."

He left the room, and Teddie did as he was told, settling down back into his fur and humming happily.

This was easily the best day ever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The world is no longer safe from Hurricane Teddie.


	48. In Which Everyone Has A Bit of Adjusting To Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Teddie having a new form has consequences, but he doesn't entirely care about that right now. He's just a bit too thrilled to be able to do things.

Ken wasn’t sure why Kanji wanted them to come by the textile shop as soon as possible, but he didn’t have anything pressing enough to keep him away, so as soon as school was out for the day, he met up with Ren and the two of them ventured over to the shopping district.

When they got there, Kanji was already waiting for them, standing next to a boy their age with golden hair who was busy trying to see how much of a steak skewer he could fit into his mouth.

“I keep telling you, you’re gonna make yourself sick if you eat like that…” Kanji grumbled, before noticing the approach of two more kids. “Ken. Ren. You’re here.”

“They are!?” The new boy looked up, his gaze locking onto them with incredibly bright blue eyes. An oddly familiar shade of incredibly bright blue. “Hi, Kenny! Hi, Renren!”

...Ken had no idea what he’d expected, but it definitely hadn’t been this. “...Hello, Teddie.” He turned to Kanji. “Um, how is he…?”

“I got no idea. One minute he was complaining about the heat, and the next… This happened. Not sure exactly when it did, it’d been a few days since the last time he opened his head…” This conversation probably sounded extremely weird to anyone passing by on the street.

Ren blinked. “Really? No idea at all?”

“Nope!” Teddie chirped, looking a lot more concerned with his steak than the issue of his new body. “But I have fingers now! And I can go outside! This is great!”

...Well. It was nice to see him happy.

“I dunno what I’m gonna tell Ma, either… and I’m gonna have to tell her something. I mean, a bear suit is one thing, but an actual kid? Can’t exactly just not mention him and hope she never notices.” That could, admittedly, be a problem.

“D-do you think she won’t like me?” Teddie looked up from his meal with worried eyes.

“Nah, I’m sure she’d like you, it’s just… it’s weird.” That was certainly one way to put it.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out,” Ren grinned. “I mean, who wouldn’t like you?”

Ken could think of someone, technically. But Aigis probably didn’t count, and he was sure that even she would relent at seeing such a friendly Shadow. Not that he was sure she knew that Teddie existed. It all depended on what the others were willing to tell her.

...He was going to have to tell people about this. At least, for the most part, everyone was already aware that Shadows could be very weird.

That didn’t make it anywhere near adequate preparation.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: I’m having a very weird day, and I think we may need your help with something. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...Explain. _

_ Amada Ken: Well, first of all, Teddie… sort of grew a human body inside himself? Or something? We’re not really sure how it happened, honestly… _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: A human body? Really? _

_ Amada Ken: Yeah. He looks like he’d be in the same grade as either me or Ren-san, if he went to school, but it’s not like we can just… send him there next semester, or anything. What with not having a human identity, and all. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...You want me to fabricate a human identity for your Shadow friend. _

_ Amada Ken: Yeah, pretty much. It’s that or he sits around all day and probably breaks something important. I… don’t think it’s safe for him to be bored. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...At least, if he’s around your age, it should be simple enough to explain away the general lack of records of his prior existence. Have his living arrangements been affected by this? _

_ Amada Ken: Actually, we’re not sure about that yet. We’re going to have to wait and see. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: I understand. Tell me when everything is settled. _

* * *

  
  


Being a Persona User… took some getting used to. Becoming one, took time to recover from.

Rise hadn’t thought much about the consequences of using newly-acquired superpowers after actual days without food or water, being a bit more concerned with the giant thing coming out of the floor, but she was paying for that now.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like having Himiko. It was nice, knowing that if she needed to learn something, she could reach out and sense it, even if it only really came naturally to her in the other world… the one inside of the TV. Which was still a bit unbelievable to think about.

And yet, it had happened. She remembered being surrounded by fog, she remembered her Shadow… While Himiko was silent about most things in this world, there was just so much of it, it could be slightly overwhelming.

When Yukiko came by to visit, Rise could sense the fires burning in her blood. When Kanji passed her by, the lightning rushing beneath his skin was as clear as day.

Now, there was a trio of children standing before her, one with darkness seeped into his bones, one with light shining from his heart, lightning and something else coursing just behind his eyes, and a third carrying a chill within himself that perfectly contrasted his sunny personality.

“Hello again, Rise-san.” Ren took the lead of the group for the moment, nervously adjusting his glasses. “We thought we’d come to… well, Teddie wanted to see you. And Ken-senpai and I couldn’t really think of anything else to do, so… here we are.”

Teddie nodded. “Rise-chan, I have something beary, beary important to ask you.”

“What is it?” While she didn’t know him very well, she got the feeling it could only be either something incredibly trivial, or the most important thing ever.

“Do you like pink better, or blue?” Okay, she hadn’t expected this, but then again, five minutes with the bear was enough to realize he was a force of nature that could not be predicted. It was sort of refreshing, but it was also bound to turn exasperating eventually. “I’m making some more glasses, and I need to make sure that yours are the perfect color.”

“Oh, um… Pink, I guess.” She was pretty sure it looked better on her than blue, anyway.

“Right. I’ll make sure you have the perfect pink pair.” He sounded incredibly serious about this.

“It’d be better than sending him straight out into public, anyway…” Ken mumbled.

Teddie gave him an affronted look. “How rude! Don’t you trust me!”

“I’m just saying, before dealing with most people, you might want to learn how to not get attention from everyone else on the street.” It was hard to fault him for that. Rise would offer help, if she could, but… honestly, she couldn’t actually think of anything.

Still, the kids probably wouldn’t set Inaba on fire, and that was probably the most important thing.

* * *

  
  


Fear was not a thing that Teddie experienced very often, at least not for himself. It was beary rare that something could make him afraid, at least in his experience, and he could list them- most Shadows with the fog gone, his own Shadow and the Reaper all of the time, the thought of being all on his lonesome, and spiders.

That last one was a recent one, but he’d still insist it was completely justified. The one that had been under Kanji’s bed was huge! Why couldn’t it have been a nice little ladybug or something?

Now, however… Now, he had something completely new to be worried about.

This new thing wasn’t a powerful Shadow, or an arthropod out to make a mess of his fur, however. Rather, it was a sweet lady who turned to greet Kanji as soon as he came through the door.

“Oh, Kan-chan, you’re home again already?” Teddie wasn’t sure why she sounded so shocked. Before he’d gotten his new body, Kanji had always come back a lot earlier than this.

For some reason, Kanji’s face was turning red. “Ma… I told you to stop calling me that…”

“Sorry, dear, but you’re always going to be my little Kan-chan.” She pawsed, as though she was finally taking in Teddie’s presence after he’d spent a week hiding out in her house and occasionally sneaking downstairs in order to raid the freezer. “Oh? Have you brought a friend home with you?” Delight crept into her voice, even as she gave Teddie a look so apprising he wouldn’t have been surprised if she saw past his human guise to the Shadow underneath.

He hoped she didn’t, of course. That would have meant a lot more awkward questions than there were going to be already. But it wouldn’t have surprised him.

“Oh, yeah, um…” Kanji had said that he’d think of something. Why hadn’t he thought of something? “This is Teddie. He… doesn’t exactly have anywhere to go, and…”

“...Is this because I wouldn’t let you have a cat?” Where had that come from?

“Wha-? No! I woulda brought him here anyway! Where else is he supposed to go? He hasn’t got anyone else.” Teddie was tempted to bring up Kenny, Renren, Yuki-chan, and Rise-chan, but decided that this probably wasn’t going to help his case at all.

“...I see. Teddie-chan, how much do you know about fabric?”

“Kanji’s been showing me how to knit!” He chirped. “It’s… not going all that well, though...” Admittedly, he hadn’t made another attempt since his sudden acquisition of actual fingers, but the point still stood that he hadn’t done quite as well as he’d hoped he would.

“And do you like cookies?”

“...What are cookies?”

Even after being whisked into the kitchen and plied with pastries, he still couldn’t decide whether or not he’d given the right answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...All things considered, I think that went pretty well.


	49. In Which Ken Makes A Terrible Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On the bright side, Teddie's settling in to the human world pretty well, now.

_ Arisato Minato: You haven’t been talking to me a lot, recently. _

_ Amada Ken: According to Kotone-san and Yukari-san, apparently you still need your full attention to fend off all the girls that are coming your way. _

_ Arisato Minato: You’ve learned far too much from Aragaki. It’s honestly terrifying. _

_ Amada Ken: Yeah, well, it’s better than the alternative. Did you do anything to make those two mad at you again? _

_ Arisato Minato: I’m starting to think that dating is just more trouble than it’s worth… _

_ Amada Ken: Or you could, you know, learn how to say no to them. That would also make things a lot easier for you. _

_ Arisato Minato: We’re not talking about this. Actually, I wanted to ask if there’s any sort of interesting food down in Inaba. I can’t let Nozomi-senpai keep outdoing me. _

_ Amada Ken: ...I mean, if you show up when it’s raining, people who are sixteen and older can try eating a really big beef bowl? I stopped by when they were serving it once, I think it may actually be some kind of portal to the meat dimension. But it’s free if you manage to finish it. _

There was no immediate response to this. There was, however, a text from Junpei just a bit later.

_ Iori Junpei: Minato’s spent the past couple minutes just sitting on the couch and spiritually drooling. Do you… have any sort of idea why he’s like that? _

_ Amada Ken: There’s a nonzero chance he’ll come down to Inaba for a free beef bowl the next time it rains a lot. I’m dreading it already. He’s not subtle. _

_ Iori Junpei: What are you talking about? He’s one of the most subtle people we have! _

_ Amada Ken: That isn’t saying anywhere near as much as you seem to think it is. _

* * *

  
  


Training with Chie was… Yukiko wasn’t sure whether it was harder or easier than she’d expected. On one hand, she had powers, and Chie didn’t, but on the other, Chie had been creatively kicking things for years, and showed no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Yukiko, on the other hand, never got closer to melee range than it took to throw a fan, and she only even did that much because Koromaru, while preferring hugs and pets, still at least understood the meaning of the word ‘fetch’ enough to do so on command.

Still… it wasn’t exactly difficult to see what Chie thought of this whole thing. “Wow, Yukiko, you’re a lot stronger than I thought you’d be! I mean, not that I thought you’d be weak or something, just…” She continued stammering on for nearly a minute before giving up.

Yukiko just waited for her to run out of breath before responding. “I know. I’ve been getting a lot of practice on my own.” Practice, training, exploration of another world where everything wanted to kill her… past a certain point, was there even a difference anymore? “I think it’s going well.”

Chie laughed, and looked like she was searching for something else to talk about that was less awkward. “...Hey, do you remember Takeshi-kun from middle school?”

It took Yukiko a bit of thinking, but she eventually managed to come up with something. “I… think so?” She ventured. It was hard to be entirely certain. There wasn’t much about him that stood out. “What about him?”

“It’s just… do you remember him being really annoying, back then?”

If she was completely honest, the only reason Yukiko remembered anything about Takeshi was because Chie had asked her to. “I… don’t think I really talked to him. Has he been bothering you?” Since everything started happening, she hadn’t been spending as much time with Chie as she’d used to. Anything could happen with her, and she wouldn't really know.

At least, with Teddie living in this world now, she could at least be sure that she and Chie would remain on the same plane of existence. This probably wasn’t something most people had to worry about, but it was definitely a concern for her.

“Not… I wouldn't say he’s bothering me, exactly, but he’s showing up a lot more, and the things that come out of his mouth can be really… like Yosuke-kun, but worse.”

This was hard to imagine. Hanamura Yosuke, as far as Yukiko could tell, suffered from a terminal case of foot-in-mouth disease. “That’s… sort of the definition of bothering someone, though.” And, honestly, she really shouldn’t have had to point that out.

“I know, but it’d just… feel rude if I told him to leave. So it can’t be that big a deal, right?”

Yukiko wished she had some kind of an answer for her. But she didn’t.

* * *

  
  


One of the biggest worries about having Teddie living in their world was the fact that he had yet to properly learn how to human. It was the sort of thing most people learned as they grew up, but for obvious reasons, this wasn’t something they could sit around waiting for.

“Not sure we’ll be able to get him back through Junes,” Kanji sighed. “Moment you take your eyes off him, he wanders off to go poke at something new.” This was probably not exaggerated.

It was times like this that Ken was almost glad Nanako was practically being raised by the television. At least if she was watching TV, she wasn’t wandering off and getting into trouble. “Maybe it’s a younger brother sort of thing?” He suggested. “I mean, I know you can’t actually be related to him, but with your hair dyed like that, you sort of look it.”

“I would’ve thought it would be more of a kid thing, really…” It could have been that, too. Except Ken knew a lot of kids who weren’t like that, particularly at their age. Then again, given how Teddie’s first experience with people was someone throwing others into TVs, he supposed that an exception could be made for him. He was already an exception to a lot of things.

“I mean, I wouldn’t know. I haven’t really been a normal kid for… a very long time.” Closer to four years than three, now. Still longer than most people his age would have managed. He still wasn’t sure whether to be proud of that or not. “But I’ve also known people older than you who drag others into trouble.” He was definitely thinking about Akihiko here. Honestly, Teddie felt a lot like him for some reason, though he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to explain it.

He was also thinking about Junpei, just a little, even if Chidori had put most of his antics on hold for the foreseeable future. Most of them.

There was nobody who would ever claim that Junpei only had good ideas, after all.

“All the time, or just…?”

“It depends on how bored they are… and how many Shadows are around. They just don’t always think things through… we should probably make sure Teddie knows how to think things through.” Otherwise, that would just be a disaster in the making, if it wasn’t already.

“Great. We can squeeze that in with crocheting lessons, or something. Ma probably won’t help that much- look how I turned out!”

“I think you turned out just fine.” Ken was willing to admit he was more than a little biased here.

“Half the people at school are scared of me, though…” Kanji muttered.

“That’s just because they don’t know you, yet,” He insisted. “Hey, Teddie, do you think Kanji-san’s scary at all?” He called, and the bear came rushing over.

“Of course not! Kanji’s really fun, and nice!” This was probably the point where, if he still looked like a Shadow, Teddie’s ears would have been twitching. He was almost predictable like that.

Now, if only they could predict what sort of things he’d become fixated on next…

* * *

  
  


“...You hopped on the train as soon as you saw the weather forecast, didn’t you?” Ken wasn’t sure why he was surprised- he himself had admitted the possibility.

“You said there’d be free food.” As if that explained everything.

“...Did you at least tell the others you’d be here?” He hadn’t gotten panicked texts from everyone, but then, maybe they hadn’t noticed he’d been gone yet.

“I did, after I was an hour away by train. If I said it sooner, Aigis would have wanted to come along, and I need someone in the same classes as me to tell me what I missed.” That was what he said, but Ken suspected that Minato just wanted to not have to deal with Aigis for a bit.

This was still concerning, though. “And… you don’t think Aigis would jump on the next train after you?”

“Kotone-chan threw her at me while she visited you. I might as well return the favor.” The sad thing was, this probably wasn’t even the biggest reason they refused to acknowledge that they were related. Just the most currently relevant one. "It'll be nice, to be free from her until Sunday."

“Minato-san…” This was because he’d tried to offer him advice, wasn’t it? “You… know I can’t get you anywhere to stay for that long, right? Amagi-san’s nice, but she’s not that nice.”

“Don’t worry. I can pay for it.” Why would he be able to… Wait.

“Did you just take all of the Tartarus money?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> New similarity between Shinji and Kanji: A younger brother of the Star Arcana who doesn't always have the best impulse control.
> 
> Hello, Minato. Try not to break anything too important while you're here. (Of course they still have money from Tartarus. Have you seen how much money is in those suitcases? And that's not even counting the weapon sales...)


	50. In Which Minato Takes On A Beef Bowl

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> People probably shouldn't be visiting country towns just for a free lunch, but Minato's not going to let that stop him.
> 
> All things considered, he should probably have let it stop him.

On an evening in Inaba when the skies were as far from clear as it was possible to be, two teenagers with blue hair encountered each other on the street.

“I… do not believe I’ve seen you around here before,” Naoto ventured, leaving out the part where she didn’t spend that much time in the town, either.

“That’s because I’m just visiting,” The young man explained. “I heard I could get some good food for free if I stopped by while it was raining, so… It’s a lot quieter here than Iwatodai.”

Naoto did some fast mental calculations. “You took a two-hour long train ride, four hours both ways, to come here… so you could get a free lunch?”

“Well, I’ll also be visiting a kid my family took care of for a bit while I’m here, but… yeah, pretty much.” This man was clearly insane. There was no other explanation.

“And… you’re not worried about the financial repercussions of this?” For those who couldn’t complete it, the Rainy Day Mega Beef Bowl challenge was expensive. Naoto had seen a girl with brown hair from Yasogami High complain a lot about the hold it made in her pocket money, though no one had had much sympathy because, after nearly a year, she should have known better by now.

“Don’t worry. Money shouldn’t be an issue for me. And if you’re worried about my classwork, I’ve got a friend back home to cover for me.” He listed these things out on his fingers, as if he’d been rehearsing them. He sounded bored enough for it, at least.

While she still wasn’t convinced about the whole thing- she’d tried the challenge once, and walked away with a stomach ache and too many leftovers for one person- she supposed that, if this man wanted to risk his health eating far too much beef, that was his decision.

“...I see. Have a nice day, then.” As she walked down the street, she pushed the young man with blue hair out of her mind for now. The encounter didn’t matter, when they’d probably never see each other again. He wasn’t important.

Besides, if she thought too much about the Aiya's beef bowls, she could accidentally talk herself into trying to take on the challenge again, and the last thing she needed to do was get sick from overeating. Everyone at the station already treated her like a kid, she didn’t need anything making it worse.

...Though, admittedly, it was tempting. If only for the bragging rights she’d get if she succeeded.

* * *

  
  


There were certain things that tended to happen, on a rainy day in Inaba.

People would run through the streets, trying to avoid getting wet, clutching onto umbrellas as though their lives depended on it. Gardens would go untouched, the water falling from the sky just as good for them as anything that came out of a hose.

The gas station attendant was creepier than usual, if that was even possible.

Foolhardy people, or those who were confident, or who wanted a good show, congregated in the shopping district, at one particular little diner. It was a spectacle, wherein the human stomach competed against the sheer bulk of meat and rice that made up the Rainy Day Mega Beef Bowl.

Capitals entirely necessary.

Ken, currently, was not old enough to partake in this spectacle, and he wasn’t sure he’d want to even if he was. “I take it you still want to delve into the Meat Dimension?” He wryly asked Minato, who hadn’t stopped grinning since they met up.

Honestly, it was sort of creepy. Minato barely ever smiled.

“Nowhere else I’d rather be,” He solemnly replied, though his hair was still plastered to his face and his skin paler than it had any right to be. This did not make him seem any less like a serial killer. Given the current murder case, this was probably a bad thing.

“Of course there’s not…” Ken wasn’t really surprised. Minato was easily the biggest eater in SEES, able to pack away far more calories than his scrawny frame would suggest. If he saw food he wanted to eat, there was absolutely nothing that could stop him from eating it.

Nakamura-san, at least, seemed amused by the whole thing. “So, that’s one Rainy Day Mega Beef Bowl for you… and you’ll be having?”

“I’ll just… have a plate of egg rolls.” Mostly, he was just there to see what would win- Minato’s appetite or the Meat Dimension. “I think I might be too busy watching him to eat much.”

Watching, staring in horror… those were basically the same thing, right?

“You think he stands a chance?” Nakamura-san asked.

“If he can’t do it, there’s nobody I know that can.”

* * *

  
  


As was half-expected, half-feared, Minato’s powerful appetite ended up winning the valiant fight against the evil forces of the Meat Dimension. He didn’t seem particularly bothered by how much he’d eaten, either, but that much was only to be expected.

Kotone wore her heart on her sleeve. Minato instead shoved his in a locked box and buried it beneath the final floor of Monad, to use a fairly outdated turn of phrase.

They then ended up visiting the textile shop, so that Minato could have someone to brag to in person, the ever-excitable Teddie hanging off of his every word with wide blue eyes.

Kanji was a bit less impressed. “You keep this up, and I’m gonna be even more glad that Ted’s too young for that challenge. He’d eat himself sick.”

“How do you know?” Minato asked. “Have you tried it?”

“Course not. I ain’t old enough for that- that thing, either.” It was only Teddie he glanced at this time, though Ken supposed that was fair enough. It probably wouldn’t be a good idea to teach the little Shadow to swear until he’d somehow acquired a brain-to-mouth filter.

Personally, Ken wasn’t sure they’d ever be able to find him such a filter, but they could hope.

“Then you just don’t know how good it is.” Minato was still not sounding any less like a serial killer. “What is life, if you don’t try everything that comes your way?”

“Longer?” Ken suggested. “We already fight Shadows, why make things more dangerous?”

“Yeah, what he said,” Kanji agreed. He stood up. “Anyway, I’m gonna go get a normal lunch that isn’t going to kill me if I eat it all. Coming, Ted?”

Teddie, of course, had his little light blue raincoat on the second that food was mentioned. “Come on, then! Let’s go!” Ken wasn’t sure why he was being taken out in public, but he supposed it wouldn’t make that big of a scene if everyone else in town was busy with the beef bowls.

He and Minato left the shop with them, and watched them go down the street, Kanji holding onto Teddie’s hand so he didn’t run off and get into trouble.

“It’s sort of amazing, how much you’ve changed,” Minato commented. “In less than two years, you went from wanting to kill Aragaki to trying to replace him.”

Ken groaned. “Could you be any louder? I’m sure there’s people back home who didn’t hear you.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his jacket.

“I’m just saying, it’s a pretty big difference.”

“We’re not talking about this.” Why had he made the mistake of mentioning the possibility of free food to the blue-haired Fool? He’d known exactly how he would react. And now he had to spend the weekend dealing with him. “Why don’t I… um… introduce you to Ren-san? He’s a Wild Card like you, so maybe you’ll get along?” They were fairly similar in ways besides their Arcana.

“I… think I heard one of the others talking about him. He’s your age, right?” Minato checked.

“He’s in the grade below mine. We discovered the world inside the TV together. It was… sort of his idea to start investigating this whole thing.” And then there’d just been more and more reasons to be involved, until they were pulled in so deeply there was no getting out.

Minato took a moment to think about it, and then shook his head. “I… don’t think so. Not today, at least. I don’t need to get that mixed up in the sort of things you do.”

“If you didn’t want to be at least a bit involved in this, you shouldn’t have come to Inaba.” But he still wasn’t going to drag him to meet Ren. If only because he had no idea where Ren would be, today or tomorrow.

Hopefully, he wasn’t still staring at a wall in the middle of the soaked shopping district.

* * *

  
  


A young man, who knew little about Inaba due to only being there for a few days, walked through the town on a foggy morning, completely unbothered by his inability to see anything. Most people would feel unsettled by the walls of white around them, but to him, it was like a second skin, a return to a world he’d known since childhood, and then left forever.

So adjusted was he to a world where everything was slightly wrong, it took a few moments for him to realize that what little he could see… probably wasn’t meant to be there.

_ Arisato Minato: So, hypothetically speaking… What am I supposed to do if I find a dead body? _

_ Amada Ken: ...You’ve been here for three days. _

_ Arisato Minato: Yes, but about the dead body… _

_ Amada Ken: …You should call the police? I’m not sure why I have to tell you this. _

_ Arisato Minato: Look, the Dark Hour was weird, okay!? _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the relationship between Ken and Minato should be easy enough to see now- there's a reason Ken prefers Kotone.
> 
> Alternative chapter title: In Which Minato Finds A Body. I genuinely considered it.


	51. In Which Minato Is Infuriating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minato's reaction to finding a dead body is not the same as most people.
> 
> ...Actually, his reactions to just about everything are not the same as most people.
> 
> This can get annoying at times.

For the first time he could remember, Ken was awake before his uncle had to leave the house for work. He blamed the fact that Minato obviously had no idea how to handle things like a normal person, but that still didn’t explain everything.

“You’re up awfully early for a Sunday,” His uncle commented, already clearly preparing to leave.

“One of my senpai decided he needed to text me early in the morning about something really stupid.” Ken wondered if he’d ever be able to talk about the reason behind that, or if it’d just end up being one of the many things left forever unspoken.

...Well. Almost forever. He knew some people who would be very interested to hear about Minato’s continued cluelessness about supposedly obvious things, even if it didn’t really mean good things for him. “I just… figured it was late enough to get up all the way.”

The conversation didn’t continue from here, and Ken wondered why he even bothered trying to progress it. Clearly, they weren’t ever going to get anywhere.

...He wondered if he’d be able to catch some television before he had to make sure Minato didn’t end up becoming a murder suspect. If that happened, Mitsuru would probably kill them.

...Honestly, as long as Minato made it back to Iwatodai in one piece, it would probably be fine.

* * *

  
  


The person who found the third body had dark blue hair. He could almost be related to Shirogane in that way, though this probably wasn’t the time to ask if the pintsized detective had any relatives who were far too skinny for their own good. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Arisato Minato.” There was barely any inflection in his voice. The name sounded a bit familiar, for some reason, but it was just about impossible to place it. “And don’t call me a kid. I’m almost nineteen.” Those words came with something resembling irritation, but his face was still completely blank. Honestly, with how blank he was, the irritation might have been imagined.

“I see. And what were you doing before…?” There was really no good way to ask that question.

“I was taking a walk. I’m only here for the weekend, and wanted to see as much as I could.”

“Visiting relatives?” He didn’t remember anyone in Inaba named Arisato, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything. The town wasn’t quite that small.

“Actually, I mostly came here for a free beef bowl.” Was this kid for real?

“...You realize that this is a serious situation.” Arisato simply blinked up at him.

“I’m being serious. That’s the reason I came here.” There was something wrong with this boy, and Ryotaro just wasn’t sure what. Assuming, of course, that he wasn’t just messing with him.

He bit back a sigh. “And where are you from originally?”

“Iwatodai.” It figured. He could go years without hearing anything from that city, and all of a sudden, he had to deal with three people from there, two of which were decidedly unhelpful, and the third of which being thirteen. “I came here because I heard about the beef bowls.”

Apparently, he really was serious about spending a weekend in a town just for one meal. “And you weren’t worried about the… financial repercussions of this?” He was starting to worry, just a bit, about this kid’s mental wellbeing.

“I dated Kirijo Mitsuru in high school.” He was very, very worried about this kid’s mental wellbeing. “Money’s not really an issue for me.”

...The sooner he returned to the normal line of questioning, the sooner he never had to see Arisato Minato ever again. He was counting on this.

* * *

  
  


“So… the person that died was your teacher?”

The group of Persona Users had gathered by the river, Rise included, with Kanji and Ren showing Teddie how to skip stones across the water.

Yukiko nodded. “That’s right. It doesn’t do much to narrow down the list of suspects, though… nobody liked him very much.”

“Still, he wasn’t on TV or anything, was he?” Kanji asked. “I think I woulda remembered something like that.” He leaned back and threw another rock.

“It could have been on a different station from what you watch, though…” Ren mused. “I know we don’t get a lot of channels out here, but it’s possible.”

“No, no, it would have been all over the school if that happened.”

“You’re also assuming it’s related to what you’re doing.” They all looked up, and there was a young man with blue hair leaning against the stair rail.

“Hey, Minato-san,” Ken waved. “Did you finally get done talking with my uncle?”

“The guy I was talking to was your uncle? Huh. Small world.” He sat down on the steps. “So, I already know Teddie and Tatsumi… And I can make pretty good guesses about Amamiya and Kujikawa… so I guess you’re Amagi?” He gestured at Yukiko.

“Th-tha’s right. Amagi Yukiko. Are… you another one of Ken-kun’s senpai?”

Ken sighed. “Unfortunately… This is Arisato Minato. He’s one of SEES’ two Wild Cards. Never take dating advice from him, I can tell you it won’t end well.”

“Now that’s just rude.” Minato, however, didn’t try and contradict him on anything.

“Anyway, what was that you were saying?” Ren asked, returning them to the topic at hand. “About… us assuming things about Amagi-san’s teacher dying?”

“Well, there wasn’t anything on the Midnight Channel last night. Also, I didn’t think anyone was able to figure out what either of the last two died from, but where Amagi’s teacher was found had… a bit more blood than there probably should have been.”

Kanji blinked. “...Probably?”

“I don’t live here. I have no idea how much blood you expect to see on the streets.”

Ken just groaned. “None, Minato-san. None is always the correct amount of blood to expect to see on the street. I shouldn’t have to be telling you this.”

“Maybe whoever it was just got upset that the TV method wasn’t working?” Rise suggested. “I mean, it was… probably pretty noticeable when I came back… They even had a police detective interview me.”

“Oh! By the way, Rise-chan, I finally finished working on your glasses!” With that change of subject, Teddie pulled something pink out of his pockets. “Ta-da!”

“Thanks, Teddie. I’m sure they’ll look really nice on me.”

The conversation slowly drifted back away from murder.

* * *

  
  


Thankfully, Ken would not have to deal with Minato’s eccentricities for much longer, if only because the next day would be a school day, and also it probably wouldn’t be safe for him to stick around long enough to be on television.

...Admittedly, if that happened, Ken wasn’t sure if he’d have been more worried for Minato or the Shadows, but it was better to just avoid having to think of it entirely.

“I think your new friends are nice,” Minato commented. “Sort of like SEES, but less…”

“Formal? Bad at talking to each other? Likely to end in attempted murder?” SEES had had issues, back when they had been exploring Tartarus, and none of them would even try to deny it. “I think the different circumstances helped a lot with that.”

“Do you mean the talking part, or the willingness to commit murder?”

“...Just go home already.” Hopefully, he wouldn’t make the habit of stopping by Inaba every time it rained on a weekend, Ken’s patience wouldn’t be able to handle it.

“Actually, have you told your friends about-?”

“Arisato Minato, if you don’t get on that train in the next fifteen seconds…” Minato wisely shut up. “Make sure you tell everyone back home that I’m doing all right, okay? And that they’re allowed to come by during summer vacation… except for you. You can stay in Iwatodai.”

Minato nodded, and stepped on the train. The doors closed behind him, whisking him away back to the city where everything had happened, two years ago.

Ken breathed a sigh of relief. As good of a leader as Minato was, some people really were best appreciated from a distance. Preferably, one that he couldn’t be heard over.

Maybe he could just go back to see Nanako and try to pretend that the weekend had never happened. That would be nice.

* * *

  
  


Admittedly, pretending that the events of the weekend hadn’t happened would have been a lot easier to do if he wasn’t a naturally curious person. “Did anything interesting happen at work today?” He asked his uncle, whose appearance before dinner probably counted as something close to a miracle.

“Just a smartass witness…” He grumbled. Ken was about seventy-five percent sure he was talking about Minato, and the other twenty-five percent was the fact that he had no idea if anyone else had been involved. “Still not sure he wasn’t just messing with me…”

“What do you mean?”

“He said that he came to Inaba to eat a beef bowl.” It was nice to see that Ken wasn’t the only person around who felt extreme frustration at Minato’s very existence.

“Okay, then…” It was also nice to know that Minato being generally unhelpful to law enforcement wasn’t just a thing that happened when there was something to hide.

...Actually, if anything, maybe him telling the truth was worse. He wondered how Mitsuru would react, if he told her about that.

...Then again, maybe she was already upset with Minato. He had, after all, cut school and taken the Tartarus money for the sake of free food.

...He’d tell her anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Minato doesn't even realize why some people find him irritating. Presumably, having lots of people fawning over him due to his maxed-out Charm stat isn't helping.
> 
> If Ken were willing to admit to knowing Minato, he and Dojima could probably use their shared frustration as a chance to bond. Sadly, that doesn't seem to be happening.


	52. In Which People Are Busy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also, Naoto doesn't know how to interact with people her own age. This could be a problem eventually.

If there was one good thing about the most recent murder, it was that there was now actual evidence that a crime had been committed, beyond the very obvious fact that a dead body had appeared somewhere when the person had, just a few days before, been going around doing absolutely nothing to endear himself to the student population of Yasogami High.

...Admittedly, that part didn’t do a lot to narrow down the list of suspects, but at least now they could have an actual list beyond Adachi’s conspiracy theories, and were actually starting to make progress.

One of the more popular subjects of said conspiracy theories was currently eating steak with an idol, a tailor, and three children, all of them passing scraps to a dog under the table.

“I’m not sure it’d be that easy,” One of the children, a boy with glasses and black hair, stated. “I mean, even if it stopped working so well… All he’d have to do is make his move closer to when the fog comes up. Not just… jump to something that can be tracked.”

“That still assumes it’s the same guy, though, doesn’t it?” Naoto wasn’t sure when Tatsumi Kanji had gotten glasses, but he wore them well, adjusting them as he spoke. “I mean, Arisato said…”

Another one of the younger boys, this one with brown hair, sighed. “Look, I’m not saying Minato-san doesn’t have good points sometimes, but he also doesn’t realize that puddles of blood are supposed to be disturbing. Or see the point of visiting people in hospitals. Or… Okay, let’s just say it’s a really good thing that Kotone-san was there back when things started going downhill, or it could have turned out a lot worse.”

Amagi blinked. “But if he’s not disturbed by things like blood, wouldn’t he know a lot about-”

“Let’s just not go there. Please.”

Naoto thought this would be a good time to intervene, if only because she didn’t have anything else to do that day, but would also feel really awkward just standing to the side and listening in on others’ conversations. “Um, excuse me…”

“Oh, you’re that detective from before!” Kujikawa recognized her immediately. “I- Sorry, I never quite caught your name, before…”

Naoto wasn’t sure she’d actually properly introduced herself to Kujikawa before. She could forget to do things like that, sometimes. “Shirogane Naoto. I’m currently working with the police on... certain matters.” And also getting thrown at cases of disappearances, because any disappearance could, if they were unlucky, end with another dead body.

“...By which you mean murder.” The brown-haired boy sounded completely matter-of-fact as he said this, as though this sort of thing were an everyday occurrence.

Given what this group had been talking about beforehand, this should probably have been concerning.

The child who hadn’t spoken yet blinked up at her with bright blue eyes. She genuinely hadn’t realized people could have eyes that blue. “It’s nice to meet you, Nao-chan! I’m Teddie!”

“N-Nao… chan?” Naoto repeated, wondering if this kid had somehow seen within the space of a minute what an entire police department, over the span of more than a month, had completely failed to notice. If he had, she didn’t know whether that said more about the officers or the kid.

“Ignore him…” The brown-haired boy sighed. “He’s always like this. Is there… anything you wanted to talk to us about?”

Possible subjects… Naoto grabbed for the first one she could think of, not bothering to think over what it was. “Well, you’ve been talking rather loudly… And I wanted to say that, in the case of the most recent victim, the police are already narrowing down the list of suspects.” Also that they actually had a list of suspects, but admitting that they hadn’t had one before that had any sort of evidence backing it up was one of those things that probably wasn’t a good idea.

“Really?” Kujikawa asked. “Well, that’s good, isn’t it?” She sounded pleased.

“It is, so long as they find the right person. And the truth doesn’t end up being something they’d never believe. Or…”

Amagi blinked. “...Ken-kun, are you okay?”

“I’m not sure if you really want the answer to that.”

Naoto started wondering if now was the time to make her grand escape.

* * *

  
  


Once again, the school, as a whole, couldn’t seem to stop talking about murder. It had been entire days, and yet the topic was continuing on.

Ken wasn’t exactly thrilled by this. He hadn’t been happy about it the first couple of times, either, but… It hit just that much harder, now that he was actively involved in trying to keep people from dying. Like he’d failed, somehow, even if the TV had never actually been involved.

“Dad’s busy, again…” Nanako said sadly, clearly not paying any particular attention to the television, even though the quiz show she loved was currently running.

“Yeah…” Ken reached over to scratch Koromaru behind the ears. “I’d… like to think he’s doing this because it’s important.” That the two of them weren’t just being left alone without a reason. “It… might at least make things better at school.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s just… all everyone talks about is people dying. Because they think it’s interesting. Like nobody’s actually being hurt by this, except…” Except they were. Even the people whose hurts weren’t publicly known about. Even the ones trying to fix things. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, though. It was like this back in Iwatodai, too.”

Nanako turned to him. “What do you mean? Did something bad happen?”

There were so many ways Ken could have answered that question. All of which were some variation on ‘yes’ because of just how many bad things had ended up happening. “Do you… want the real answer, or the nice one?”

“The real one.” Of course she did. He wasn’t sure why he’d bohered asking.

He sighed. “Yeah. A lot of bad things happened. And people would talk about them like I wasn’t even there, even when- when it was about me. My senpai were the only ones who didn’t do that, and… they weren’t really having the best time, either.”

Koromaru gave a low whine of agreement, pressing closer to Ken. Nanako reached over to pet the dog as well, now fully distracted from the show still displayed on the TV screen.

“That… sounds really sad. Was it… really that bad?”

He couldn’t really tell her the full truth. The story was full of both things that nobody who wasn't part of it would ever believe, and things that he really didn’t want to tell a six-year-old.

But he also couldn’t just say nothing, so he just reached for the first thing that came to mind. “Well, Shinjiro-san was in the hospital. That… wasn’t great, but at least I didn’t go to the same school as everyone, so I didn’t have to listen to… well… he never really had the best reputation. And then there was this big cult that showed up? But it disappeared pretty quickly, too.” Did Nanako know what cults were? This didn’t exactly seem like the kind of place where it would ever be relevant, but…

Whether she knew what he was talking about or not, she just kept listening to him. “That… things are better here, though, right?”

Things had been better in Iwatodai, too. After the Dark Hour was gone, everything had just… slowly started improving. Shinjiro woke up, the cult dwindled down into nothing, people with Apathy Syndrome started to recover… It had been great.

And then he was asked to move away from it all.

“Well… Things aren’t as bad as they were back then,” He finally replied. “That… counts for something, right?’

That didn’t seem to have been what Nanako wanted to hear. But it was the truth, and she’d asked for his honest answers, so it really was the best that she was going to get.

* * *

  
  


Ren found that the tasks Marie wanted to give him were a lot easier to complete than Lavenza’s.

It was also easy to see why. Lavenza’s tasks ranged from ‘fuse a certain Persona,’ to ‘bring me a specific kind of drink,’ to even ‘pet every animal in town.’ Meanwhile, all Marie ever wanted was to be brought to a specific location, and sometimes they even found friends there.

Today, they were at the shrine, and it was technically just the two of them, but there was also a fox that was willing to accept pets, and Ren supposed that had to count for something.

“You know, Marie-san, I never see you around when it’s raining,” He commented, glad that her presence meant the kids from the elementary school were less likely to be mean about a middle school student spending time in ‘their’ place.

“The others don't let me leave then. They say it’s not safe to go outside when my ‘existence is wavering,’ or whatever.” She didn’t sound entirely happy about this fact. Ren supposed she’d probably never known the annoyance of getting rained on when it was just a few degrees shy of freezing outside. “I don’t get it.”

“I’m not sure what that means, either, but that sounds like something you should probably listen to? I mean, it’s… sort of creepy, but…” What was he trying to say? “I mean, the rain isn’t… you’re not missing much.” Unless she wanted to try the beef bowls, but they probably weren’t good enough to justify running out for no reason other than to get some.

He’d get Ken to ask that one senpai of his to be sure, but… Something told him any answers from Arisato Minato needed to be taken with a grain of salt. It was just a feeling he got.

Either way, it didn’t really matter to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of these days, Naoto really needs to learn how to talk to people normally. Also, at some point, Teddie should probably learn how to not react to literally everything that happens around him.
> 
> Sadly, I don't think either of those is happening any time soon.


	53. In Which People Have Dilemmas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even when there's nobody trapped in the TV World, that doesn't necessarily mean that things are simple.
> 
> Ren just wishes he didn't always have to be at the center of it.

Ren found he had some talent for fishing.

He’d only thought to try it out recently, after seeing a TV show where the main character wielded fish as weapons, though he’d realized soon after that weapon-worthy fish probably weren’t something he’d be likely to find in the Samegawa.

Was that going to stop him from trying? Of course not.

Today, Ken had come along with him, but was having problems not getting entirely tangled up in his fishing line. “Do you want a bit of help with that?” Ren asked, struggling to hide his amusement.

“I’m fine…” Ken grumblied, successfully rescuing his fingers from the thread before he managed to spear himself with a fishhook. “I’ve just never done this before. There isn’t really any place to go fishing in Iwatodai.”

“Weren’t you right by a bay?” He thought he’d heard something about that.

“That doesn’t mean it was a good spot for fishing.” Ken managed to successfully cast a line for the first time since they’d gotten there. “Are there any interesting fish here?”

“Well… They say there’s this really big fish that lives in the river- it’s called the Guardian, and it’s supposed to only come out when it rains. I’ve never heard of anyone who actually caught it, though.” Admittedly, he didn’t pay much attention to fishing stories. “I might try, if we actually don’t have to worry about the Midnight Channel anymore.” Not that he was entirely sure they didn’t, but it was a nice thing to hope for. It’d be nice for the town to be peaceful again.

“Do you really think we won’t?” Ken sounded even more skeptical than he was. “I mean… Even if the police have something to work off of now, it might not be enough. And… a lot of it’s still a story that most people wouldn’t believe.”

Ren had honestly been trying not to think that part. After all, one of them had to be optimistic about this, if not with the same cheer that Teddie carried everywhere he went.

“You don’t think they’ll be able to handle it?” He asked. “Isn’t your uncle a detective?”

“Yeah, but… Sometimes, people just take whatever answer makes sense to them. They latch onto them, don’t let go, and… things just continue from there. His partner said he’d lived in Iwatodai his whole life, and if that’s true, he’d have been around the same people that-”

Ken forced himself to stop there. Ren noticed. It was the sort of thing that was kind of obvious, but only to someone who was actually part of the conversation.

“Does this… have to do with…?” He wasn’t sure there was any way to finish the sentence without stepping on something he didn’t mean to.

“Officially, Mom died in a drunk driving incident. When I tried telling people it wasn’t that, they just said I was imagining things. And… maybe it’s better that people don’t know, but… they could at least have listened to what I had to say, even if they still didn’t believe me. That… I think it would have helped, if I’d had that.”

Ren, not for the first time, realized that maybe it wasn’t the best idea to ask Ken about the kind of things that happened in Iwatodai. As much as it sounded like an interesting story… maybe it was the sort of thing he didn’t want to hear, just yet.

Still, the Justice Arcana told him they were getting closer, and maybe that story would end up being a part of it. It wouldn’t be the first uncomfortable thing he’d heard from his teammates.

It would be nice, though, if he could spend time with someone without every dark aspect of their history getting dragged out for him to see.

* * *

  
  


Compared to everything that was going on around them, Rise was a breath of fresh air. She insisted that Ren show her everywhere, everything that had changed since the last time she was in Inaba, long before Junes had first been built.

It still wasn’t the happiest tour- a lot of the places she remembered had closed down- but there were still a number of new things that she was excited to see.

...Admittedly, that was mostly the vending machine selection. But they hadn’t even made it out of the shopping district yet, so there was still time.

“Thanks for agreeing to show me around. I’d ask one of the others to do it, but Kanji-kun’s busy with Teddie right now, and… Yukiko-senpai’s just busy.” She wasn’t exactly wrong. It had been a few days since Ren had seen Yukiko. “And Amada-kun’s also new in town, so…”

“He’s not that new,” Ren spoke up. “But… he probably wouldn’t know what sort of things have changed, either. He finds new places mostly because he follows me there. Or if he’s looking for something to do with Nanako-chan.”

“Who’s…?” Right. She hadn’t had the chance to meet Nanako yet.

“His cousin. She’s really cute. I think she might be a fan of yours, but…” He shrugged. “Ken-senpai would know that sort of thing better than me.”

“I guess he would,” Rise agreed, popping the tab on her soda. “But… I don’t know. Would it be weird if I said I hoped she wasn’t a fan?”

“How should I know? I don’t know you all that well. Do you hope that?”

She shrugged, which cleared things up to Ren not one bit. “I mean… It’s not that I hate my fans. It’s just that… it can be a bit much, you know? They all look at me, and expect to just see ‘Risette.’ And… well, it’s like you saw. There’s more to me than that.”

“I don’t think… people should have to see your Shadow to know that,” He said, carefully. “I mean, I don’t really… I guess I’m not exactly qualified to say this, but…”

Rise laughed. Ren supposed this meant he hadn’t tripped over his tongue too badly. “Thanks. I know I shouldn’t be asking a kid to help with this kind of thing, but you’re special, Ren-kun.”

“You mean with the Wild Card?” He asked, though he wasn't sure how she could mean anything else. It was the one thing that set him apart from the rest of the team.

“It’s not… well, it’s not just that. You just… seem like a really good listener, and that’s definitely a special thing. There’s not a lot of people like that. You don’t… mind if I talk to you about this sort of thing sometimes, right?”

Would there even be a point to his saying no? “It’s fine. I… I like talking to people.” It made his Personas stronger, at least, and it wasn’t exactly bad for his confidence, either.

Rise was visibly relieved, and in that moment, Ren got his first picture of the Lovers Arcana.

He supposed that, in the grand scheme of things, this meant that he'd made the right choice.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: I think I might be telling my friends too much. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Your friends… the Persona Users. Who you taught how to fight Shadows. Who are helping you to solve a murder case. _

_ Amada Ken: Well, okay, it sounds dumb when you put it like that. But it’s not just them. There’s Nanako, too, and… it’s not just Personas we end up talking about, sometimes. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...Kid. It’s all right. You can tell them whatever you’re comfortable with. Or don’t. I don’t care. _

_ Amada Ken: The list of things you don’t care about is a lot longer than it should be. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Give me one example. _

_ Amada Ken: ………Do I really have to say anything? Because if I do, I’m going to Kotone-san. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Please don’t bring Koto into this. _

It was too late. Ken had already started typing.

_ Amada Ken: Shinjiro-san’s being self-deprecating again. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: I see. Thank you for telling me, I’ll make sure that it gets taken care of. _

This whole conversation hadn’t really made Ken feel any better about his own dilemma, but then, he supposed there wouldn’t really be a simple answer to that kind of question.

...Well. There’d used to be. But that wasn’t the person he was anymore. Kala-Nemi proved it.

“What do you think, Koromaru?” He asked, reaching out to pet him. “If things keep going like this… How much should I say?”

Koromaru gave a soft whine and leaned into the touch, but didn’t do anything else. Odds were he wouldn’t have given a decent answer even if Aigis was around and willing to translate. Ken supposed he should have expected that.

Still, he supposed it didn’t matter yet. So long as nobody asked questions, or did something that hit particularly close to home, the whole thing could pass by and he’d never need to say anything that might have consequences he didn’t like. It was hard to spill secrets while focusing entirely on weeding the garden.

Nobody had any reason to ask about things outright. And if they did, well…

Hopefully he’d have figured something out by then.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a casual reminder that being a Wild Card tends to mean working as everyone's therapist despite being decidedly unqualified. This is, obviously, not a good thing.


	54. In Which A Good Day Is Not Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko's training with Chie has an unwelcome visitor.

Despite what Chie had said about Takeshi, Yukiko had been quick to put him back out of mind. However, that did not stop him from existing, and he showed up while she and Chie were in the middle of a training session.

“Huh? Yukiko-san, I… almost didn’t recognize you,” Takeshi remarked. Yukiko bit back the response she would have liked to give- that his looks were so generic she would never have been able to pick him out from a crowd.

“Yes, I did grow out my hair this past year, thank you for asking,” She replied instead.

“I didn’t mean that! It’s… you’re just so… weirdly cheerful, lately. It’s not like you.”

“So you’d rather I be miserable instead?” She shot back. Next to her, Chie winced.

“I’m just saying, you were a lot prettier back then.” Yukiko reminded herself that it would be a bad idea to try to set her former classmate on fire. Among other things, she couldn’t quite reach her Personas powers in this world yet, and so the attempt would be doomed to failure.

Chie’s fists balled up, and she looked ready to freeze Takeshi to the spot, powers or no powers. “So, you think her being pretty is more important than if she’s happy?” With the look on her face, it was honestly probably a good thing that Chie didn’t have any kind of special powers.

“Chie, it’s fine,” She whispered back. “He doesn’t matter, really. When he’s not around, I barely remember that he exists.”

Was it a good idea to say that right in front of the person in question? Probably not.

Did Yukiko care about that? Of course she didn’t.

Takeshi started stammering incoherently. Yukiko ignored him.

“Come on, Chie, let’s train somewhere else. How about that big hill?”

* * *

  
  


Admittedly, crossing town so they could train on the hill instead of by the riverbank might have been a bit more effort than it was worth, but Yukiko didn’t mind. The sauna had felt like more of a long walk than this, though admittedly, that may have just been the heat stroke.

“I can’t believe you laid into Takeshi-kun like that!” Chie breathed out, her eyes almost sparkling.

“I was getting tired of listening to him talk. Given how he’d just shown up, I wasn’t going to hope that the rest of the conversation would be any better.” It was nice to see that she could cut with words just a well as she could with any sort of fan.

“Well, yeah, but you never… you never spoke up quite like that, before…” Yukiko supposed she had a point. Before getting her Persona, she’d been… well she wouldn’t say she’d just let everyone walk all over her, but she was less willing to show others the full force of her disdain.

It probably wouldn’t do anything for her popularity that this had changed, but she’d never much cared for being popular in the first place. It simply didn’t matter to her.

“I’ve decided that I can’t just let people decide things for me anymore,” She explained. “I’ve had enough of being told what I’m supposed to be like, so I’m… trying to figure things out for myself. I think it’s going fairly well, so far.”

“Yeah, if you’re doing things like that…” This was probably the most impressed Chie had ever been by Yukiko’s actions. “It’s… really easy to see you’ve changed.”

Yukiko wondered if the change Chie saw in her was a good one or a bad one. It sort of scared her to ask. She told herself she didn’t care what others thought of the path she chose, but…

Well. Old habits were hard to break. “You really think so?”

“Yeah. You’re so much more confident now. It’s…” She trailed off. “Different.”

“That’s good. I don’t think I’d have a chance of finding out what I wanted, the way I was before.” Hearing someone that she knew well say that she’d changed… well, in that case, maybe she really had. Maybe if she kept working the way she had, she’d find out what she really wanted for herself. Though… It wasn’t as if she didn’t already have a few ideas.

Things were finally starting to look up.

* * *

  
  


Ken had grown to expect his uncle not to be there. Now that the police were finally starting to make progress on the case, he’d barely been around at all, Ken only ever being awake when he got back due to his sleeping schedule remaining somewhat unorthodox.

Today, however, the house had all its occupants at a reasonable hour for the first time since… Ken couldn’t remember when. Some time ago, was the point.

“Aren’t you supposed to be really busy right now?” He asked, shortly after Nanako had gone to bed. “I’m surprised you made it home.”

“This isn’t about that.” That was the most attention he got. It prickled at him just as badly as ever.

“Then… what is it about?” If it wasn’t about the ongoing serial murder case, it couldn’t be that bad to talk about, right?

Apparently, it was that bad to talk about, because his uncle’s face was immediately closed off. “This… it’s not something that I’ll be discussing under this roof.”

“We can go outside, then.” Okay, so maybe he had spent more time around Shinjiro than was strictly necessary. He still didn’t regret it at all.

“You’ve got quite a smart mouth on you…” His uncle muttered, clearly displeased with that turn of the conversation. “I’m not sure it’s something kids your age should hear about.”

Ken had been beyond caring about what kids his age were supposed to hear about for a long time, now. “And? Whatever it is, I promise I can handle it.” It couldn’t be worse than anything he’d dealt with before. It didn’t get much worse than the end of the world.

Instead of saying anything, his uncle placed an old newspaper clipping in front of him, one from well over a year ago. Figuring he’d be in trouble if he damaged it, Ken read it silently.

“You’re… still looking into what happened to Aunt Chisato?” The picture this painted… it was far too familiar. It just went to show that they really were related. “You… never told me anything about how she died.” And he’d never asked before, because he hadn’t thought it was any of his business. It couldn’t be, because he’d never met her, at least not as long as he could remember.

“You’re thirteen years old. I don’t need to bother you with that sort of thing.” Like age had anything to do with it. Like he was just a kid, instead of a teenager who had been making his own decisions for years now, no matter how terrible some of those decisions had been.

“Thirteen isn’t that young.” He’d torn Shadows apart with his mind, thrown lightning bolts, watched people die and faced the Reaper without backing down- albeit not without complaint. All at the age of eleven. Compared to that, this was nothing.

He wasn’t backing down. And he could tell his uncle noticed, because he sighed in defeat. “Well. The article’s right there. She was on her way to pick up Nanako from school, but… never got there. And it was hours before any word of it got back to me.”

Ken couldn’t decide if that was better or worse than being there when something like that happened. He couldn’t really think of any good point of comparison- back in fifth grade, he’d been well aware of death as a possibility. Maybe a bit more than he should have been, but he could say the same thing for every other member of SEES, as well.

“Then, Nanako…”

“She was sitting there for hours, waiting for a mother who would never come. She doesn’t know anything more about it than that, and she doesn’t need to.”

“You mean you’re too scared to tell her.” At this point, Ken was seriously starting to wonder what was wrong with this family. Not that he hadn’t already been aware there were problems, but… He hadn’t exactly signed up for this, except for in the very vague sense of wanting his friends to avoid legal trouble. “So she won’t know, whether she needs to or not.”

His uncle was looking at him more fully now, examining every detail on his face like there was something very wrong. “Sounds like you think you know a bit about it.”

“Not really,” Ken shrugged. “It’s different, not wanting to tell someone something, and not being able to.” And it was another thing entirely, to experience one after the other. “I should get to bed.”

He left, before any questions could be asked about the words he’d said, and hoped that they’d be forgotten by the next time the two of them had a conversation.

It was a strange feeling, to be wishing for the days when things hadn’t made sense.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This set of Social Links presses so many of Ken's buttons it isn't funny.


	55. In Which There Is Drama Over Potato Chips

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also, the police are sort of making progress. Sort of. And then backsliding.
> 
> This surprises absolutely nobody.

There were many things that Naoto loved about her job, as many as there were hurdles that she struggled to overcome. She particularly enjoyed the feeling that came from all of the pieces of a puzzle fitting together, even if the process itself was slower than she would have liked, at times.

Still… there was always that sense of satisfaction that came about from a job well done. Something that Naoto felt she was getting closer to with every passing second.

It had been useless to try and single out people who had a grudge against Morooka Kinshiro. He was simply a very unpopular man who had alienated many students, and who had been teaching for several years. Even looking at more recent events proved futile when it came to figuring out who could have killed a man that nobody liked.

Fortunately, unlike both prior victims, this time they were able to identify a murder weapon. It was also the first time they identified a cause of death, which was still sort of concerning, but at this point it was clearly a better idea to just take what they could get.

The man was already dead. The least they could do was use these unfortunate circumstances to stop anyone else from ending up the same way.

Eventually, they came up with a name. Kubo Mitsuo. Not anyone that Naoto knew, thankfully.

The other detectives thanked her for her assistance and then went about their lives like she wasn’t even there.

And just like that, the good feeling started to fade away.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: I need you to tell me to stop being so honest. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...Why would you need me to tell you that? Is something wrong? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, we have a serial murder case, for one thing. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: Amada. _

...All right, so maybe downplaying this wasn’t working, and it had been just a bit foolish of him to try. And he’d been so sure that it could have worked, too…

_ Amada Ken: My uncle’s a bit too much like me. It shouldn’t matter so much, most of the time it’s just me and Nanako, but… it’s still sort of surprising that I haven’t told him anything I shouldn’t. Even when he’s never around, I’m still scared it’s going to happen. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: When you say he’s too much like you… what do you mean by that? _

_ Amada Ken: He’s… really focused on how my aunt died. I mean, I guess he would be, but… It’s taking up all his time, even when he gets to be home. Like it’s the only thing he cares about. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: That’s… disconcerting. _

_ Amada Ken: I mean, aside from failing at time management, he seems to be a lot better off than I was? I know that isn’t saying much, but… it’s something. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: ...And you are absolutely certain that you don’t want to be kidnapped. _

Honestly, some days, it was pretty tempting. Mostly days like this one.

But running away wasn’t going to solve anything. Besides, he had a murder case to solve.

_ Amada Ken: Even if I did, this really isn’t a good time for that. Also, I think you’re spending a bit too much time with Kotone-san, because she suggested the exact same thing. _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: I hope you realize I wasn’t being entirely serious. _

_ Amada Ken: I know, but also if you mention it to the wrong person, it’s going to end up happening. If it does, make sure Nanako comes along. _

Maybe it wasn’t exactly right to make suggestions on this kind of thing, but it was a very effective distraction, and he needed a distraction right now.

After all, the best way to be certain the police were handling things was to see if anything appeared on the Midnight Channel- or, at least, that was the theory Yukiko had. Teddie was interested in viewing it for himself as well, but Kanji was trying to talk him out of it on the basis of the Channel’s content really not being suited for his apparent age group.

Whoever ended up watching it, if things went as they normally did, the next broadcast would be in just a couple of days, assuming that the weather report was as eerily accurate as ever.

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: Are you certain that you’re okay? _

_ Amada Ken: I’ll be just fine. _

Sometimes, it really was a good thing they weren’t able to talk face-to-face anymore.

* * *

  
  


It was going to start raining soon.

Ren was... mostly ambivalent about the whole thing, honestly. There were enough of them to keep an eye on the Midnight Channel, he didn’t really have any plans that the rain would cut off… it just didn’t seem like it’d be more than a minor inconvenience, particularly if the police really were making progress like that detective had claimed.

Marie was less thrilled about it, muttering as she shuffled through Skill Cards that Ren would probably never use, but that was understandable. She barely had much freedom on sunny days, and at least then she was allowed to leave the Velvet Room.

“I just wish they’d tell me why,” She complained, quietly, as the train clattered along on tracks with a destination still obscured by the fog. “But all they say is something about my existence wavering when it rains. I don’t even know what that means!”

Ren looked to Lavenza for answers, but she was currently flipping through the pages of the Compendium. “Star Arcana, Lovers Arcana, Death Arcana…” Her mumblings seemed to take no particular order, which was strange when she normally seemed so organized.

Apparently, he wasn’t going to get any help from there. And Igor was unrepentantly cryptic at the best of times…

Ren sighed and got back to doing what he’d originally gone to the Room for. “So… can I take a look at my possible triangle fusions now?”

He still needed a number of his on-hand Personas, so his wallet was definitely going to be begging for a mercy kill by the end of this… but it was probably going to be worth it.

* * *

  
  


Tonight, when it came to what experiments a ragtag group of Persona Users could do when most of their members were middle school aged and one more could expect to have semi-regular responsibilities, was probably going to be a good night.

It was probably the only way it could be a good night- it definitely wasn’t going to be the weather.

There was one thing that came with the rain that was important- it meant that the Midnight Channel was going to be running, and show them if there was anything that they needed to do. Kanji hadn’t been thrilled with the last show he’d watched- the only one, so far, though he wouldn’t have been overly surprised if there were others- but, hey, someone had to see it.

...If anything, he was more worried about Teddie seeing anything he shouldn’t have, even if they were using tonight as a way to figure out if the Midnight Channel could be viewed with another person in the room, or by multiple people at once. It wouldn’t be the end of the world if it couldn’t- Yukiko would be watching as well, and Teddie’s innocence would be preserved- but it was still something that could, conceivably, be useful to know.

If they made it to midnight. “Ted, you can’t just eat all the chips.”

Teddie reached into the bag and brought out another handful. “But Rise-chan says that, when watching TV, you need proper snacks.”

“We’re not exactly watching it right now…” It was still a bit before midnight, the rain still poured down, and Teddie was still crunching potato chips with little to no regard for proper nutrition, assuming that kind of thing actually applied to him. They still weren’t too sure about that.

“Do you want some?” Kanji examined the bag, already half-empty, and took it.

“Sure, why not?” Anything he ate would be something that Teddie couldn’t, and that was apparently the only thing stopping the bear from devouring every piece of snack food in the house.

...Well, that and not having enough time. And the general concerns about making himself sick, which he only seemed to pay attention to at the last possible minute.

Kanji took a bite of potato chips. It wasn’t that bad, for snack food eaten at near midnight while waiting for a show to determine whether or not he needed to jump through a television and start throwing lightning bolts around so the kids wouldn’t have to.

The clock struck midnight. The television, as half hoped for and half dreaded, turned itself on.

Unlike the previous showing, this Midnight Channel didn’t start with a silhouette. Rather, it jumped right to the main event, showing a boy about high school age with dark hair and pale skin, his eyes glazed over and holding nothing inside them at all.

If Kanji was being honest with himself, he'd admit that this kid looked incredibly punchable. And also creepy, but that part sort of went without saying.

“Do you want to find me?” The boy on screen asked, in a voice almost completely devoid of emotion- what was left was an undercurrent of smug satisfaction. “Well, then… catch me if you can.” And that was where the showing ended.

“Who was that?” Teddie asked, having apparently seen the exact same thing.

“Not sure, but that’s probably who we’re looking for. Guess Ken was right when he said the cops might not be able to handle this.” He thought it would probably be in bad form to hit an actual person over the head with a folding chair, but it looked like this was where things were going. “He must be hiding out in that world right now, sure nobody’s gonna find him.” Probably without a way out, come to that, but if the person behind this ended up on a telephone pole, things in Inaba would probably never return to normal. “Did he forget the cameras were running, or something?”

“...Maybe he didn’t know they were there?” Teddie suggested. “I mean, it’s not being filmed or anything…”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, I dunno how to explain it…” Teddie trailed off and took another handful of chips.

Kanji really didn’t know what he’d been expecting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I will never not be amused by Kanji's initial weapon being a chair. The only thing funnier is the fact that it upgrades into a desk.


	56. In Which They Search For A Name

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone has gone missing that has supposedly committed murder. Naturally, this is very concerning.
> 
> Teddie has an idea.

A new Midnight Channel meant a new meeting to figure out how to deal with it. This time, they were meeting in the Junes food court.

“Are you really wearing that?” Ren asked, examining the fluffy fur that made up Teddie’s original form.

“Of course I am!” The bear replied, his mouth moving as if he’d never gained his human body to begin with. “We could be going to my world, after all!”

“Yeah, but… we’re still in the middle of Junes…” As little as that seemed to mean sometimes. “What if people start noticing you’re not supposed to be here?”

Kanji shrugs. “I’ll worry about Ted when they start noticing Koro-chan.” This was, admittedly, a very good point. Koromaru was currently playing with the fox under one of the tables. Neither of them had yet garnered any attention, and it looked like they weren’t going to.

“I guess that’s fair.” Ren glanced up and saw Rise coming over. “Rise-san, are you ready?”

“Not even close. I don’t know anything about this guy. His name, what school he goes to… how am I supposed to find him if I don’t even know what I’m looking for?”

“We could ask around again,” Yukiko suggested. “That boy… he seemed sort of familiar, somehow.”

“Maybe he goes to your high school?” Ken suggested.

“...No, I’d remember if he went there. There’s… something off about him.”

“Was it his eyes?” Teddie asked. “They were beary scary! Like- like he wasn’t feeling anything at all, except he has to, or else he wouldn’t…”

Ren turned to the bear. “Wouldn’t what?”

“If he didn’t feel anything, there wouldn’t have been a Midnight Channel. Like… it was showing what he was feeling, or something? But... that probably doesn’t make sense.”

“Seems fine to me,” Kanji stated. “Guy doesn’t think he can get caught, starts getting smug about it… starts taunting us like he’s invincible or something.”

Ren took a moment to consider that possibility. It mostly made sense, but… “Isn’t there something strange about this, though?”

“Huh? What do you mean? It makes sense, doesn’t it?”

“Sort of, but… on the Midnight Channels I saw before, I was… pretty obviously the person’s Shadow who was running the show.” He pushed thoughts of Konishi Saki out of his mind once again. “But… if he can go into the TV, then he must have a Persona.”

“Not necessarily.” Ken popped the tab on a soda can, apparently figuring that they would be there for a while. “It’s… my senpai and I used to fight Shadows together, back when there was a nest of them in Iwatodai. And you could usually only get there if you had a Persona, but there were… exceptions. And even people who did have them took a while to get to the point of… being able to summon them… not that the Evokers’ design helped with that.”

Ren blinked. “Evokers?”

“It… wasn’t as easy to summon Personas there as it is in the TV, so we had… workarounds.” Ken mimed shooting himself in the head. It probably said something that Ren was almost surprised it didn’t call out Kala-Nemi. “I… don’t really know who came up with it.”

“Well, whoever it was, they were clearly real messed up in the head,” Kanji decided. Ren couldn’t bring himself to disagree with that. “Anyway, Rise-chan, what sorta info do you need?”

“Um… let’s start with his name and work from there. From what I saw on the Midnight Channel, I… shouldn’t really need more than that. I mean, I could be wrong, but…”

“I guess that’s a good start,” Yukiko said. “We can go around town and ask about that boy. That… sounds really simple, actually.”

“I won’t be much help here,” Ken sighed. “My uncle never tells me anything about work. We’d be better off asking Naoto-san, and I don’t even know where we’d go to find Naoto-san.”

“Well, we’ll just have to ask everyone we can,” Ren decided. “Parents, classmates… anyone who’ll talk to us. ...And by us, I mean the people they’ll actually pay attention to.” It was hard being young sometimes.

Ken didn’t seem happy about the reminder that, due to being in the first half of middle school, people weren’t going to pay much attention to them, but he nodded along, as did everyone else.

They would set off on a not so epic quest to find the boy’s name.

* * *

  
  


“A boy with dark hair and eyes?” Chie looked at Yukiko. “You do know just how not helpful that is, right? Almost everyone around here has dark hair and eyes!”

She… wasn’t wrong. “Um… the last time I saw him, he was wearing a yellow shirt?” Maybe not the best idea to direct Chie to the Midnight Channel, even if it wouldn’t be broadcasting that night. “Oh, but… people change clothes a lot, don’t they.” Not everyone wore just one or two colors all the time.

“Yeah, that’s not helping, either.”

“Um… he was… really creepy? Like, his voice was kind of flat, and it didn’t look like there was anything in his eyes.” Chie tensed up. “Chie?”

“I think I remember someone like that. He was hitting on you at the start of the year.”

“Really?” She blinked. “I didn’t notice.”

“You never do… Anyway, I never caught his name. But I did recognize the uniform for the school he goes to… it’s not all that close to Yasogami, actually… what was he doing there…”

If the evidence was to be believed, apparently he was there to scope out the results of his murder scene, maybe. Or maybe he’d just gone over to stalk her. Yukiko wasn’t sure which possibility she found more disturbing. They were both terrible.

“I don’t think it matters,” She commented, trying to convince herself of that. “I’m… pretty sure he’s in trouble with the police or something.” It probably wasn’t a good idea to mention that murder involved. “With how he was, it… really isn’t that surprising.”

“Really? In that case, if I see that creep again…” And now Yukiko had to talk her best friend out of potentially getting arrested for assault. This was not the first time they’d had to have such a conversation, and it probably would not be the last.

But this time was particularly important. She really didn’t want to see Chie get thrown into a television.

* * *

  
  


Kanji insisted that Teddie let him do all the talking.

Teddie was of the opinion that this was totally unfair. Sure, he didn’t know very much about dealing with regular humans yet, but if he didn’t get the chance, how was he ever going to learn?

He wanted to be friends with humans, and the only way to do that was to get out and try. So while Kanji tried to flag people down in the shopping district- scaring off more people than he managed to talk to, he had a beary scary expression sometimes- Teddie went to go sniff out some help. In his human form, of course- no reason to go about scaring people!

His nose wasn’t as good as it used to be. This fact was still scary, no matter how much the others told him they didn’t care about that. He had to keep being useful to them.

And right now, the best way to be useful was finding someone who could help. Like Nao-chan! Kenny was right- as a detective, it made sense that she would be able to help!

...At least, Teddie thought it did. Still being relatively new to humanity, there were a lot of things he wasn’t completely sure of yet, the roles that various people played in society among them. All he really knew was what other people decided to tell him.

Either way, he eventually managed to find Nao-chan sitting by herself at a picnic shelter, not appearing to do much of anything at all. She seemed sort of sad, but it was impossible for Teddie to tell why she’d be that way. ...Well, one way to find out.

He ran up to greet her. “Oh, hi, Nao-chan!” People liked being greeted this way, right? At least… none of the others had really complained about it, so it had to be okay!

She looked up, her eyes meeting with his own. “Oh, um… hello.” She was clearly surprised by his presence. “You’re one of the kids that was with Tatsumi and Kujikawa the other day.”

“That’s right! I’m Teddie!” Had he introduced himself to her before? He hadn’t, had he? Well, he definitely had now, so there wasn’t any reason to worry about it. “Why do you seem so sad?”

“I… seem sad?” She repeated. How did she not realize the feelings she was giving off? They were written all over her!

“Is it cause you’re out here on your own?” He asked. “I don’t like being alone, either. But it’s okay, now, because I have lots of friends! Do you have lots of friends, Nao-chan?”

Nao-chan seemed more than a little shocked- albeit, not literally- by his question. “I’m not sure how that’s any of your concern.”

“But people should have friends!” Friends were Important. “But that’s not what I wanted to ask. Do you know a really creepy guy with eyes that look like the darkest void?” They were emptier than the inside of his Shadow, and that was saying something! “Beary creepy voice?”

“...That depends on why you want to know.” Was he supposed to tell the truth about this, or make up a lie? Maybe he should have let Kanji do the talking, after all…

“We just need to know his name. He’s been bothering Yuki-chan!” Admittedly, mostly because she didn’t know his name, but that part could be left unstated, probably. He was sure Kanji would be proud of him, if he saw him keeping quiet like this.

“In what way?”

“I dunno. She just said he was bugging her. But we need to know!” If they didn’t know his name, they wouldn’t be prebeared to find him, and that was no good at all!

She sighed. “I suppose you do… his name is Kubo Mitsuo, and he escaped police custody yesterday. If you see him, you should try and keep your distance.” Was she… worried about them?

“Don’t worry, Nao-chan! We’ll be beary careful.” He turned and ran back down the road, excited to tell Kanji what he’d found out. He’d have to let him talk to people now, right?

Nao-chan’s gaze burned on his back the whole way down the street.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like... learning about Mitsuo shouldn't be that hard. The guy committed murder, supposedly escaped police custody, and then vanished entirely. There should at least have been a missing persons report or something.
> 
> At least Persona 5 had the excuse of the various conspiracy members being overconfident.
> 
> Naoto is currently wondering just what the deal is with this strange pun-loving child. No matter who she asks, she's probably never going to get a satisfying answer.


	57. In Which Naoto Makes Poor Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Look, somebody had to notice the crowd of kids carrying weapons eventually.

It probably went without saying that, when the group split up in search of information on the person who presumably committed murder, Ken hadn’t expected Teddie to be the one who came back with the information they needed.

And yet, he’d come running up to them, chirping out a name as soon as he’d stopped to catch his breath, as if his life depended on him somehow acquiring the correct information.

...Hopefully, he didn’t actually think that. Sure, it was apparently a thing where all Persona Users probably needed some amount of therapy, to hear Kotone put it, but it usually didn’t get that bad.

...Presumably. Ken realized that he probably didn’t have much room to talk here.

“Kubo Mitsuo…” Rise repeated the name under her breath. “Kubo Mitsuo, Kubo Mitsuo… All right, I think I’ve got it memorized. We can get going, now.”

Kanji sighed. “Finally…” As if they’d lost any more than three quarters of an hour to this task. It was better than it’d been with Rise, where it had taken an entire day to track her down. “Think we still have time to make it to Junes today?”

“We didn’t take that long,” Yukiko pointed out. “...Though, Chie was sort of upset we couldn’t talk for longer. This isn’t… the way I’m normally busy.”

Right… normally, they just jumped right into the televisions. And Yukiko presumably was busy helping her family sometimes, though luckily that had yet to coincide with their adventuring days.

“Guess that’s just another reason to kick this- to punch this guy in the face.” Kanji censoring himself remained as obvious as it always was, though he did seem to catch himself sooner this time. It was still more than a little jarring to listen to.

Koromaru wagged his tail. “Arf!”

“Koro-chan’s right,” Teddie declared. “We should get going. To Junes! Forward march!”

It was very, very difficult to argue with that kind of enthusiasm.

* * *

  
  


Honestly, the whole thing started as a coincidence.

After her encounter with the bewildering child on the flood plain, Naoto had come to the sudden realization that she was Out of Food. This was, of course, not a very desirable position to be in, so she set off to Junes in hopes of remedying this unfortunate situation. While she didn’t currently intend on staying in Inaba once the case was solved- if they managed to get around to properly solving it- that was absolutely no reason not to keep a well-stocked pantry.

This would have, on any other day, resulted in a completely normal shopping trip. However, today, something happened to ruin it.

It started with the squeaking. Naoto had just entered the produce section, trying to remember the rules for picking out good apples, when she heard something squeaking behind her.

Squeaking was not a sound she expected to hear in Junes. If she were asked to compile a list of things she expected to hear in the store, squeaking would not have made the top twenty-five.

Intrigued, she turned around to see something that looked like a kid in a bear costume running down the halls of the store, followed by two other- was that child carrying a spear? And behind them was a white dog wearing goggles with a knife in its mouth… and behind the dog were Kujikawa Rise, Amagi Yukiko, and Tatsumi Kanji.

For some reason, Kanji was carrying a picnic table. Nobody else in the store seemed to notice. This was… oddly concerning, for a number of reasons. Least of which being where he’d have gotten a picnic table- it didn’t look like any of the ones in the food court, or out in the town. Those weren’t made of a heavy-looking metal.

...Okay, actually, a better question might have been how he was carrying the table by himself. That… normally wasn’t supposed to happen, was it?

A fox wearing an apron and carrying a bundle of leaves darted after the group, yipping excitedly.

Still nobody else in the store seemed to take notice of this group, one of which was in an odd costume, and two more of them were animals, at least two of them had visible weapons, and another one of them was outright carrying furniture.

This had already been a very strange day. If Naoto were a somewhat more sensible woman, or a less curious one, she would have recognized that maybe it would be a better idea not to follow the motley crew of kids who were apparently insane and to simply alert security instead.

Sadly, while Naoto had always been a genius, that took a backseat to the discovery of interesting mysteries. She followed the crowd.

* * *

  
  


The group made it to the electronics section, which was basically as deserted as ever. It was later in the day than when they would normally start an expedition, but Ken was pretty sure it would be fine. Time worked funny in places with lots of Shadows, at least when they were entered in the ‘proper’ way. They’d probably come back fairly early in the evening, tired but in the perfect place to get whatever they wanted for dinner.

“Maybe Teddie and Rise-san should go through first,” He suggested. “That way, if we don’t have enough information, we don’t all have to pile out.” Sure, they’d end up doing it either way, but this meant less times getting squished overall.

Sometimes, Ken thought it might be a good idea to invest in a television set with a bigger screen. The problem was, no one had anywhere they could put it.

“Okay, then!” Without a second thought, Teddie cannonballed directly into the TV screen. He was probably going to end up regretting this later.

Rise stared at the fading ripples where the bear had gone through. “Um…”

“You don’t hafta jump like that,” Kanji reassured her. “Ted’s just… Ted. You could just climb in, but, you know, there’s a drop...” Yeah, it was probably a good idea to warn her about that ahead of time, instead of waiting for the inevitable complaints when she fell on Teddie’s head.

Rise gingerly approached the television, poking at the screen and watching it ripple. “It… feels sort of strange,” She commented. “It’s… like dipping my hand into a bucket of soapy water, or something.” Ken supposed that was as good a description as any.

Rise clambered through the screen and disappeared, only ripples remaining from when she’d slipped through.

“I guess we should give her a bit of time to find that boy,” Yukiko said. “I mean… it takes a bit of effort for Teddie to sniff someone out.”

“He wasn’t always like that,” Ren remarked. “Back when you were taken, he managed to find you right away. We didn’t even have to tell him all that much. But… the castle was pretty close to where we started off.”

Had it been? Ken had been a bit preoccupied with diving back into fighting Shadows to take note of such simple things as distance.

Kanji tapped the TV screen. “Hey, you two find anything yet?” He called in.

“I think I have it,” Rise replied. “It’s a bit confusing, but it’s also the only human signal inside the TV.” Well, unless some unlucky Persona User had tripped and fallen while outside of her range, but Ken preferred not to think of that possibility.

Also, he was sure that, if something like that happened, the others would call him for help. They knew about Teddie, after all.

Still, the most important thing was that they had a destination. With that in mind, Ken clambered into the TV, more than prepared to move out of the way before the rest of them came crashing down on him.

Just an ordinary rescue mission. That was all that he wanted this to be.

* * *

  
  


Naoto stood at the edge of the electronics section and watched as the odd assortment of people crowded around a television set. She wasn’t sure what they were doing here- surely, if theft was their goal, they wouldn’t have all come here so conspicuously.

Before she could put together any theories, the kid in the bear suit charged forward and hopped into the television screen.

Literally. Into it. No crashing, no property damage, just a kid vanishing from reality into a store display. Naoto blinked a few times to make sure she wasn’t just going crazy.

The idol followed the bear through the screen, but much more hesitantly. Clearly, between the two of them, she was the sane one. Of course, she, too, disappeared into the television set.

There was a moment when the rest of the group gathered turned to talk with each other. Naoto strained to hear what they were saying, but the problem with staying far enough away not to be noticed was that it was very hard to hear people who were trying to be quiet.

Eventually, though, they started clambering through the television again. The children went first, the boy with brown hair going through before the one with black hair.

Then came the high school students, working together to put the picnic table through the screen… somehow. Naoto wondered how they’d react if she walked up to them and asked what they were doing, but by the time she’d started moving, they’d already made it through.

...In hindsight, maybe she should have confronted them sooner.

All that remained in front of the television now were a fox and a dog, both of whom turned to face her approach.

For a moment, they stared at her. Naoto tried to think of what she was supposed to do here. Call security? Animal control? How did one go about telling people that they’d seen an entire squadron of students crawling into a single TV screen?

“Arf!” The dog barked, before turning and leaping through the screen along with the fox. Even as they vanished, ripples remained on the surface of the television.

If Naoto were a more sensible woman, or a less curious one, she would not have decided that she wanted to see just what was one the other side.

She always had been a detective at heart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know Kanji doesn't actually get a picnic table as a weapon, but he should. It's a very logical upgrade from the school desk. No, I don't know how he gets it through the television, either.
> 
> It probably says something that the only person to notice the crowd of kids carrying weapons was the genius detective.


	58. In Which An Explanation Is Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naoto finds herself in another world. This, obviously, needs explanation.
> 
> It might be a problem that she's getting it from the thirteen-year-old.

This had been a terrible idea.

Naoto had almost realized this about when she gained awareness of the fact that she was crawling through a portal that had only barely still been open when she stuck her hand through it, but that still hadn’t stopped her from going the rest of the way.

The more proper realization of this occurred roughly when she’d managed to fit her body through the screen, only to realize that she was suddenly… presumably really high up in the air, except she couldn’t tell for sure because she couldn’t see anything.

There was just enough time for her to regret her decision before she hit the ground, suddenly less concerned with the fact that she’d just climbed through a television than how she’d somehow survived a much longer drop than she’d ever expected to experience.

She still couldn’t see anything. A few disoriented blinks told her that this was apparently because the world was covered in fog, which gave her a headache just trying to see through it. They also told her that there were people around, but she probably could have guessed that purely from the fact that, just a minute ago, she’d been following to make sure that the kid with the spear didn’t accidentally poke anyone’s eyes out.

“Is that… Naoto-kun?” She was pretty sure that was Kujikawa Rise speaking, but everything was so disorienting it was impossible to tell for sure.

A big, round shape that was presumably the child in the costume hopped in place, its feet squeaking as they hit the ground. “It is! It’s Nao-chan! Hi, Nao-chan!”

Huh. She knew that voice. “...Hello, Teddie.” She pushed herself up from the ground, trying to ignore the stabbing headache that came whenever she tried to get a closer look at someone. “Could one of you please explain to me what is going on here?”

“I think we should be the ones asking you questions,” Amagi Yukiko spoke up. “How and why did you follow us?”

“As for how… the portal was still open for a few moments after you were all through. And for the reason why… I saw you carrying weapons through Junes and wanted to make sure you wouldn’t hurt anyone with them.”

Teddie turned to the animals. “You two were the last ones through. What do you think?”

“Arf!”

“Yip yip!”

Teddie turned back to everyone else. “Koro-chan and Miss Fox say that she’s probably telling the truth. I believe her, too!”

“I guess it isn’t that strange…” The boy with the spear noted. “I mean, it’s sort of surprising that no one else’s noticed us so far. You’d think we’d get a bit more attention.”

The other boy stared at him. “Ken-senpai, did you… actually question it so much it went away?”

“If I did, it wasn’t intentional!” He turned to face her. “Um… it’s okay if I call you Naoto-san, right? I… wouldn’t want to be rude, or anything.”

“It’s fine.” At the very least, he said it with more respect than she got from her coworkers, most days. It was nice to see that there were still people out there who could be polite and not condescending, even if it still came from a literal child.

“Okay. Naoto-san. It’s… this is really complicated, and I guess you’d want to hear all of it? But I’m not sure we really have the time for that, and this place can be pretty- well, okay, it’s really dangerous all the time, but maybe a bit less to you right now? So… we can have Teddie send you home, and we talk about this later, or you could come along with us as we do things, and we can explain as we go.”

“You sure about this?” Kanji asked, sitting on one of the benches of his picnic table. “I get that normal people aren’t really targets if it’s foggy, but…”

“When I stumbled into this sort of thing, it took almost two years for me to get any sort of real answers for what it was. I’m not having that happen to anyone else.” It was sort of concerning how a boy that young could talk about things like this so surely.

...Okay, actually this whole thing was concerning, this was just the part that stood out most at the moment. “I’ll accompany you, if… if none of your friends mind.”

There was no major dissent about Naoto coming along. She wasn’t sure if this was a good thing or not.

* * *

  
  


It would be a fairly long walk to reach the place where Kubo Mitsuo was supposedly hiding out, plenty of time to get discussion out of the way. “Oh, but first, Teddie, do you have any spare glasses? I get the feeling Naoto-san might need them.” It would probably be a good idea to make sure that their tag-along could see.

“I do! I finished some that were just the right color, earlier! Here you go, Nao-chan!” Teddie handed Naoto a pair of blue glasses. He was right- they were definitely a good color, at least for that particular outfit. “I guess the yellow ones just aren’t meant to find an owner…” Hadn’t those been there from the very beginning?

“That’s all right,” Yukiko said. “Most people don't look good in yellow, anyway.”

Ken turned to Naoto. “So, where do you want me to start?”

“The beginning would be nice.”

“That… doesn’t really narrow things down, though. Do you want the earliest thing I’ve heard of, the part where I first got involved, the bit where people started hanging on telephone poles…” Really, there were a lot of options. All of which were some flavor of disturbing.

“Whichever is easiest for you to explain.” Even that didn’t help all that much. Some of the places Ken could have started would make more sense, but others would bring up less old trauma.

“Well… then I guess we can start with how there used to be twenty-five hours in a day.” He got a lot of odd looks for saying that. “It’s true! We called it the Dark Hour. It happened exactly at midnight, and with only a few exceptions, we were the only ones who were aware then. It wasn’t really a great time to be awake in, but Shadows would come out and attack, so we didn’t really have much of a choice. It stopped happening about a year and a half ago, though.”

This didn’t seem to abate Naoto’s confusion at all. “Shadows?”

“Creatures from places like this. They can look like all kinds of things. Most of them are monsters dangerous to humans, but some of them are people, like Teddie. That ‘costume’ he’s wearing is actually the body he had when we first met him. And then there’s our Shadows, which if we do things right, can be turned into our Personas. It’s… all really complicated, we only knew the Personas coming from Shadows thing was true once we met Amagi-san…” Where was he going with this, again?

“Suddenly, I’m real glad I didn’t find out about this stuff sooner,” Kanji commented. “Not if I’d have had to go through that.” Right. The Dark Hour.

“So, anyway, if you weren’t aware of the Dark Hour, you’d end up… turned into a coffin, for some reason…” He knew there was some sort of symbolism to it, but that was another one of those things that he didn’t really like to think about. “It… wasn’t ever really safe, even if you had a Persona to defend yourself with.”

“...Persona?” He knew he’d been forgetting something!

“It’s… a power, we have,” Ren explained. “Once we get where we’re going, you’ll probably get to see ours. I… dunno if it’d make sense, to someone who doesn’t already have one.”

“You’ll definitely get the chance to see,” Ken agreed. “We’ve never done something like this that hasn’t ended in a fight. But you’ll… probably want to stay a bit out of the way, it… these fights are dangerous even if you’re not participating.”

No one questioned this at all. He supposed there were benefits to being seen as the experienced one of the group.

“Anyway, I started being aware of the Dark Hour when I was nine, and when I was eleven, I was given something to help me with using my Persona, and placed into the care of a group of other Persona Users… all of which were teenagers. We worked together, and figured out how to stop the Dark Hour from happening, and a year after it ended, my uncle finally got around to gaining custody of me and I ended up here, just in time for someone to start throwing people into televisions.” That was a pretty good summary of how things went, right?

“You… lead a very interesting life.” That was certainly one way to put it.

Yukiko blinked. “You know, this is the most that Ken-kun’s told us about what happened in Iwatodai? At least to do with the Dark Hour, but there was something about-”

“No, that involved the Dark Hour, too. Just… very indirectly. I don’t want to talk about it.” A massive shape loomed in the distance. “Huh. That went by faster than I thought it would.”

* * *

  
  


The location that they found appeared to be the loading screen of a video game, titled ‘Void Quest.’ The graphics were in a fairly old style, and were really disorienting to look at from any angle aside from straight ahead.

Ren wondered, for a moment, if he would have gotten less of a headache from the fog.

“It’s… a game?” Naoto looked up at it, the light emanating from everything reflecting off of the detective’s glasses, creating an expression that was completely unreadable. “He… thinks of this as a game?”

“I mean, I guess you’d have to be pretty messed up in the head to kill someone,” Kanji commented, while Ken fidgeted off to the side.

Ren looked around. “We should be careful either way, shouldn’t we?” He asked. “Just because it looks like a game, that doesn’t mean it is.”

There was a slow clapping sound behind him, and a voice spoke up. “Give the boy a prize. He’s clearly smarter than the whole police department.”

In hindsight, maybe it hadn’t been a great idea to bring Naoto along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In hindsight, my wanting Naoto at the summer festival probably didn't need me to put her through all this, but either way, it was going to happen eventually.
> 
> There's a non-zero chance that having this happen at Mitsuo's place is going to have consequences, but we can worry about them later.


	59. In Which Naoto Continues to Have A Very Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Naoto's Shadow shows up, and decides to solve problems.
> 
> This proceeds predictably.

The figure who emerged from the fog looked exactly like Naoto- same short blue hair, same hat that provided a good way to hide her face from others, same general attire- with just one major exception. While Naoto had dark blue eyes that were hidden behind glasses, her impostor had no such accessory, and eyes that were the world’s most cutting shade of gold.

“I suppose that isn’t saying much, though,” The copycat continued. “They just... can’t bring themselves to look past appearances, now can they?”

Maybe it wasn’t just her gaze that was cutting. Her words had clearly seen a whetstone or two, as well. Naoto’s hands curled into fists. “Who are you, and what do you want?”

“Me? Do those glasses help you at all? I am you.” She sounds satisfied as she says this, her gaze boring into Naoto’s eyes even with the protective barrier of glasses. “And I’m here to talk about how utterly pathetic the police are- counting ourselves, of course.”

“Wh-what do you mean by that?” And even if it was what she thought it was, was this really the time? They had more important things to do.

“Oh! Would you like the list?” Naoto very much did not want the list, but she got the feeling that she was getting it anyway. “Well. Let’s start with the police. They think you’re not taking things seriously. They look at you and see just a little boy playing games.”

If the boy with brown hair- Ken, that was his name- had been vaguely uncomfortable before, he now seemed to be a lot more worried. “Naoto-san?”

“They’re all blind,” The impostor continued. “Possibly literally, it might explain some of their decisions… But you’re taking things seriously, more than some of them at times. Just a little boy playing games… You’re not even a boy to begin with!”

This really, really wasn’t the time or the place for this conversation. Honestly, Naoto would have preferred just shoving her doppelganger in a closet and never letting her out. Ever. Sadly, that didn’t seem like it was going to be an option.

“I really don’t see how this is relevant to the current situation.” Video game. Kubo. Figuring out what to do about this group of amateur detectives who were poking around and stopping people from dying and being found later hanging from telephone poles. Figuring out what to do with Kubo. All of these things were much more important than her own insecurities.

“Of course you wouldn’t. They’re not wrong about you playing something, even if it’s not games.” This was definitely getting into territory she didn’t want to cover. Especially not with other people around. “Instead, you’re just playing along. Going along with what they see, because what’s worse? A boy who they just want to grow up, or a girl that will never gain any sort of respect?” Her double’s golden eyes narrowed. “I’m sick of it.”

Things just went downhill from there.

* * *

  
  


In less than five minutes, Ken had gone from explaining things about Personas to dodging attacks from the four common elements, throwing Zionga and Psio right back. The attacks being thrown around caused the graphics in the loading screen area to glitch out, despite the fact that this was an actual location that they were visiting.

If the inside of the place was like this, then the main reason he was looking forward to getting inside would be because he’d no longer be battling Naoto’s Shadow. Also so he could maybe put the whole serial murder case behind him and try to figure out what a normal life looked like.

Yes, he was aware that last bit was probably a lost cause, but he could dream, couldn’t he?

Still, he was doing better than Koromaru, whose fire attacks barely did anything, and Eiga couldn’t even do that. He was mostly just applying Sukukaja to those who looked like they needed it most at the moment, which was admittedly very helpful for not getting hit by an angry robot that was trying to strike at everyone’s elemental weaknesses.

Thankfully, there was yet to be any Hama or Mudo thrown about, but that could just be a matter of time, anyway. Or the Shadow simply being too busy to consider knocking all of them out with one hit, which was just as worrisome as a reason.

“Just watch this one’s weakness be Frei or something…” He heard Ren mutter, the familiar look of disfocus on his friend’s face being enough to alert Ken to the fact that he was currently sorting through his Personas. “I don’t have one of those right now…”

Shadow Naoto’s gaze locked on Ren. Ken realized that he had to do something, or else they’d lose their Wild Card. The question was what, exactly, he was meant to do.

...Well. Like Akihiko always said: When in doubt, Ziodyne.

Admittedly Akihiko’s advice could be suspect at times, but… it did tend to work. It also meant he had to jump out of the way of a massive fireball, but… that, at least, was normal.

Still, this Shadow seemed to particularly not like getting struck by lightning, so… Ken supposed he’d be emulating Kanji for the duration of the battle, at least until someone needed healing.

All things considered, there were much worse roles to fill.

* * *

  
  


It was easily the most difficult fight Ren had had yet. The only member of their group that Naoto’s Shadow didn’t outspeed was the dog, who couldn’t do much to her and spent most of his time preparing Sukukaja. Was dealing more damage at a time than everyone but Ken, who appeared to have given up on limiting his power for the time being, which just made things even more disorienting.

The one thing the Shadow didn’t have over the rest of them was the ability to heal. Whatever attacks the robot threw out, Ken could patch right back up for them, with the assistance of Teddie and Yukiko. As fast as their opponent was, it didn’t mean a thing if the rest of them could simply outlast the barrage of ‘whatever sounds good right now.’

Meaning that, eventually, the Shadow would fall, and return to normal. Which occurred, as sort of expected, with a pair of sudden bolts of lightning, hitting at the same time with enough force that even those who weren’t weak to it had to fight the urge to collapse to the ground.

The Shadow, evidently, could not resist the urge, shifting back into human form with about as much fanfare as when Igor would mess up while trying to fuse a new Persona.

Ren had seen such a thing several times. Actually, it had happened the first time he tried to fuse something, which had… not been great for instilling confidence in the Velvet Room’s services.

The regular Naoto stood up, hat slightly askew. “That…”

“It’s all right, if you’re worried about people not taking you seriously.” Ken leaned on his spear with a wince, and Ren blinked. Was he actually hurt? How did that happen? “I mean, until I was eleven, nobody ever took me seriously, and even then it was just my senpai. People not listening to you… that just sticks around, doesn’t it?”

“They’re not even smart about it,” Kanji added. “Like, they’ll tell me to my face I’m weird for making dolls, while I've got needles in my hands I could take out their eyes with. People are stupid.”

Naoto actually laughed a bit at that. Ren couldn’t tell if it was because she thought his words were funny, or if it was just the mental image of Kanji attacking someone with knitting needles.

Still… this probably meant that the robot wouldn’t be coming back for round two, and arguably, that was the most important thing.

* * *

  
  


There was now a feeling buzzing in the back of Naoto’s head. Sukuna-Hikona, it was called, and by drawing it closer, Naoto could feel massive amounts of power, right there at her fingertips.

She could also feel a massive headache, presumably from the methods she’d used to gain this power. Or the fact that she’d just received such a massive amount of power to begin with.

“So… this is what you talked about before. A Persona…” Maybe, if she kept calm, nobody would realize just how suddenly tired she was.

“Pretty impressive, isn’t it?” The boy with black hair remarked. “I’m not sure what you’ll be able to do now- that Shadow had a lot of things- but you should be able to fight now, too… well, if you want to, anyway…” He seemed a lot less comfortable, now that she had her gaze on him.

“I think that can wait for now though,” Ken commented. “Getting a new Persona… it’s usually not a very fun experience. Two of my senpai were actually unconscious for a week after getting theirs…” Even with everything Ken had explained earlier, this still brought up a large number of questions.

“I-I should be fine,” She insisted. “You all have something you’re meant to do today, don’t you?”

“I mean, whoever’s inside will probably be safe for a week or so, he can wait a couple days.” Rise looked up at the loading screen, which was very visibly damaged, and still as confusing to look at as ever. “Besides, if he’s been throwing people in TVs, he sorta deserves it, don’t you think?”

From a moral standpoint, Naoto probably should have objected to this.

However, given the day she’d had, it was really hard to argue against getting some proper rest. Maybe the world would even start to make sense the next morning.

Sure, it probably wouldn’t, but she could pretend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Naoto. Go home. Get some sleep. You need it.
> 
> Also, I fully believe that, if Kanji hadn't been going for a tough guy image, he would totally just go around stabbing Shadows to death with knitting needles. It would, at least, be a bit more entertaining than Suddenly Chair.


	60. In Which They Recuperate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group takes a night to recover after facing Naoto's Shadow. This was probably a good decision.

_ Amada Ken: Okay. So. I have good news and bad news. The good news is, we’ve located someone inside the TV that has probably murdered at least one person, and also found someone who may or may not be joining us. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: ...Why’s that the good news? _

_ Amada Ken: We didn’t manage to get to that person who probably killed someone because the person who may be joining us saw us going into the TV, was close enough to follow us, and we ended up fighting her Shadow right outside of the video game where the person we’re looking for is. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: That’s… a lot. Also, video game? _

_ Amada Ken: The person we’re looking for may not have the strongest grip on reality. _

He was pretty sure he could just leave it at that. Sure, it felt like a bit of an understatement, but the others worried about him enough as it was without pointing out that he and his friends were investigating a murder case.

There were exactly two things his group needed to do to be more relatively successful than SEES- not let anyone get shot, and not accidentally kickstart the apocalypse. But something told Ken that mentioning this might not have been the best idea.

_ Sanada Akihiko: I’m more wondering what that sort of thing would look like… _

_ Amada Ken: It’s very confusing. There’s even a title screen. It’s called Void Quest. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: I can’t tell if that sounds more or less foreboding than Tartarus. _

_ Amada Ken: One was a giant tower in the Dark Hour. The other is a retro video game. But they both have Shadows in them, so I guess it can be a bit confusing sometimes. There is one good thing about this, though. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: What would that be? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, normally I wonder a lot if my uncle’s going to be home on time. Now I actually know the answer. Admittedly, no is already the default guess, but it’s nice to be sure. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: Are you absolutely sure you don’t want us to come get you? _

_ Amada Ken: Why does everyone keep asking me that? _

* * *

  
  


At the very least, despite how busy a day it was, Kanji and Teddie still made it back to the textile shop in time for dinner. Teddie was beary happy with this- while he didn’t necessarily need food, it still tasted good, and Mama Tatsumi’s cooking was the best of all.

After dinner, Teddie decided to work on a model plane. He had even less knowledge of planes than he did of trains, but that wasn’t about to stop him from trying!

Kanji wasn’t working on any sort of project, however- sometimes he picked something up, and managed to make a bit of progress, but he wasn’t getting very far on it at all.

This was something that was worth worrying about. “Kanji? Is something wrong?”

“Not really… Just… feeling sorta stupid, right now.” Huh? But Kanji wasn’t stupid. He knew a whole lot about making things, and also how to defeat enemies with a chair! Or a desk! Or a picnic table! Teddie knew he would never have come up with the idea to hit things with a picnic table. And that was only half due to barely knowing what a picnic table was.

Teddie set down part of the model he’d been working on. “What do you mean? You’re really smart!”

“...Yeah, I’m pretty sure you’re the only person out there who thinks that.”

“But- but you know all about yarn, and fabric, and painting models without getting your clothes all messy!” He’d very quickly realized why humans tended to have more than one outfit, besides the obvious reason that it was nice to have a wide variety. The reason, apparently, being that human activities could make some beary big messes.

Teddie didn’t think he liked messy things. If he wasn’t careful with what body he was using, he could ruin his fur! Not being messy was Important.

Kanji didn’t seem quite so convinced. “Yeah, well… that stuff’s easy.”

“I bet, if you gave Rise-chan a pair of knitting needles, she’d have no idea what to do with them. And Yuki-chan… She’d probably hurt herself.” If he had to pick one person in the group who would accidentally stab themself with needles, it’d be Yuki-chan.

“...She would, wouldn’t she?” It would probably be a good idea never to mention this conversation to Yuki-chan. “But… they’re still just things, an’ things are easier than people.”

Teddie couldn’t say he understood this. There was just so much in the human world he hadn’t seen, and everything that he did say, he needed explained to him. A lot of things still made bearly any sense to him no matter how long he tried to figure them out.

People, though… he could handle people. At least, he didn’t think he’d ever accidentally set off a massive disaster by talking to someone, while, to hear Renren put it, it was only a matter of time before he accidentally caused a major traffic incident on his roller skates.

Not that Teddie knew anything about what qualified as a major traffic incident. At this point, he was sort of scared to ask. “I dunno about that. There are so many things, how are you 

supposed to know them all? Not everyone can be as good with people as Renre, or as bearilliant as Nao-chan.”

“...Yeah. Guess not.” Kanji still didn’t get any real work done for the rest of the night. But it was hard to tell if that meant anything, given how it was nearly bedtime either way.

Besides, Teddie was just a bit distracted by the reminder that, yes, blankets really were as soft as he’d thought they were.

* * *

  
  


Even after an entire night to think about it, Naoto still found the whole thing kind of surreal. She’d gone to the store with the expectation of getting her shopping done, and did eventually manage to do so, but only after seeing a group of kids, the oldest of which wasn’t that much older than her, running past with an assorted collection of weapons and animals.

These people had led her into another section of the store entirely, where they proceeded to dive headfirst through a gateway to another world, and just so happening to leave the portal open just long enough not just to pique her curiosity, but for her to make the admittedly-questionable decision of climbing through herself, which she still sort of regretted just a bit. As much as she enjoyed the power at her fingertips, and the idea of having friends, she could have gone without the whole ordeal she needed to go through to get there.

After landing, she’d been given a not-entirely-clarifying crash course in recent history, been introduced to a very disturbing part of Kubo Mitsuo’s psyche, and had her insecurities make a physical appearance in the form of a robot that wanted to kill everyone. Not exactly her finest moment.

Now, all that she had to tell her that the previous day had ever happened were a group of shopping bags and the new power that lurked within her, and Sukuna-Hikona wasn’t quite as close to the surface compared to before everyone left the TV.

...It also came to mind that none of them had made exact plans for when they were supposed to meet again, and Naoto didn’t actually have anyone’s contact information despite interacting with them several times, sometimes on official police business.

Still. At least it wouldn’t be a massive issue just yet. It was a school day. Worst case, she could probably get away with just staking out Yasogami High.

With how the last two- or several- victims had been associated with the school, it wouldn’t even be a difficult thing to justify. Which was good, because she’d already have to think of a way to explain locating Kubo Mitsuo that did not involve the words, ‘So, I did something stupid and followed some people my age through a television.’ She got the feeling that, if she were to tell anyone about that, it wouldn’t impress them in the slightest.

So. Yasogami High. Good place for a stakeout. Maybe she could toss some excuses around with the others- at least one of them had to be well versed in the art of bullshit, right? They weren’t exactly the smallest or the most inconspicuous group around.

...No, that went to the Yasogami Occult Club, who were probably either worshipping the powers of darkness or selling drugs. Given everything that had happened the previous day, Naoto was genuinely uncertain which one she’d rather it be.

Still. Unless someone were to officially draw attention to them, that was very definitely Not Her Problem. She didn’t even go to that school!

...She genuinely hoped that thinking that wouldn’t end up turning that into a ‘yet.’

...It probably would.

...If Kubo ended up actually being the killer, she was going to skip town for the next three years, just to be absolutely certain.

Yes, she was aware that it was probably futile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken, if you don't want people to offer to kidnap you, maybe don't mention the general neglect? Just a suggestion?
> 
> I'm not the only one who's freaked out by the Occult Club, right? There's a non-zero chance that, if Persona 6 happens, it'll be because these people grew up and ended up summoning Nyarlathotep or something.


	61. In Which A Void Quest Is Embarked Upon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They return to the TV World, and this time start making some actual progress!

After a bit of fumbling around with organization, the group was once again gathered in front of a title screen that should not have existed. It still made Ren’s head hurt.

“Nice to see that this guy’s still real messed up…” Kanji sighed.

Naoto blinked rapidly at the video game landscape. “Are all of these locations like this?”

Ken shook his head. “No, this isn’t normal. It’s not the worst, either though. The… I think it was fifth? Yeah, the fifth part of the place we explored was really…” He paused, shifting from side to side, before finishing. “...Colorful.” Ren wasn’t sure he wanted to hear any elaboration.

Especially if it could compare to this. Still… “I’m not sure you can say for certain if it’s better or worse, though,” He spoke up. “I mean… we haven’t been inside yet.”

He was already dreading it. He didn’t think there was anyone there who wasn’t.

“So, should we get going then?” Rise asked. “Just staying outside isn’t going to make it so there’s any less Shadows inside… actually, I think there’s more than there was yesterday.”

“That makes sense,” Ken noted. “Shadows are drawn to stronger Shadows, that’s… sort of how the Dark Hour happened… And people’s Shadows are really strong, compared to everything else around.” He sounded incredibly sure of this. Ren, once again, decided that maybe he would be better off just not asking. There was a good chance he didn’t want to know.

Besides, he wasn’t exactly wrong. “Rise-san, how will the Shadows inside compare to-?”

“Don’t worry- they shouldn’t be anywhere near as hard to fight as Naoto-kun’s Shadow was. All the elements she could use were a real problem, but…”

Kanji blinked. “I’m not sure you can tell us how hard that fight was when you were just standing a safe distance away. Like, you didn’t have to dodge three Garudynes at once.”

“Are you sure she didn’t just throw a Magarudyne just at you?” Yukiko asked. “She could have done that, maybe.”

“If that was the case,” Naoto began, “Then I would like to make an official complaint, because I can’t use any wide-reaching versions of that magic.” So much for finally having a wind specialist… Though, this was still more than they’d had before.

Rise laughed. “What, do you just want to go bring out your Shadow again and ask her for Magarudyne? ...Please don’t do that, by the way. I don’t want to deal with that again.”

“Don’t worry. I’m sure I can make up for this lack in… other areas.”

The first time a Shadow appeared in the video game, Naoto summoned her Persona and the Shadows exploded in a blast of Almighty magic.

Ken stared at her with wide eyes. “Was… was that Megido? I thought only Wild Cards could have Personas that did that!”

...Ren took it back. This was much, much more interesting than having a wind specialist.

* * *

  
  


While the Void Quest might not have been quite as eyesearing as Harabah, Ken had to admit that it left him a lot more confused than Harabah had, as well.

First, of course, was the normal jagged angles of this world. That much he was used to, at least, though he was forced to wonder just what the TV World had against places designed to have smooth turns. Teddie had almost skated into a wall. Multiple times. Teddie was no longer allowed to bring his roller skates into dungeons with him.

There were other things, now, which were far weirder. There was the fact, of course, that everything appeared to be pixelated despite how the walls, at least, felt smooth to the touch. Even the torches were pixelated, occasionally letting off perfectly square sparks.

And then there were the doors. Doors which, at rest, almost looked like perfectly normal doors, but that opened in the perfect fame-by-frame manner of a video game with severe lag. It probably said something that, when this person imagined the world as a game, it wasn’t even one that ran well. Ken had seen faster performance from his school’s computers, and those were ancient.

Still, at least he wasn’t the one most disoriented by this. That would be Rise, who wouldn’t stop looking around in confusion even when the rest of them were in the middle of battle. As annoying as the inconsistent support could be, though, it was hard to blame her.

“Honestly, it feels weird going through this place.” Kanji’s words summed up basically what everyone was already thinking. “Forget what it looks like, I keep expecting there to be music, or something.” Honestly, that wouldn’t even have been surprising.

“Our Navigator in Iwatodai used to give us music on request,” Ken spoke up. “Only stuff she’d listened to before, and a lot of songs were taken from the list for being distracting, but… we had something.” Mostly, they had a distraction from the fact that they were climbing a tower that, as far as they knew, didn’t actually have a top, but kept going up forever. Still, this was probably not the time to go into how places like Tartarus worked.

There were things that Ken was pretty sure his friends didn’t need to know about. This list included a wide number of things, but the time the apocalypse had almost happened didn’t need to be looked for for him to be certain it was there.

“I dunno if I could do that…” Rise mused. “Most of the stuff I know best are my own songs, and they... probably all qualify as distracting. And I don’t want to risk my singing getting stuck in this guy’s head.” That was probably as good a reason as any, actually.

“Do you think you’d have to worry about that?” Yukiko asked.

“I mean, I’m not sure, I don’t really get all of how my powers work, but why risk it?”

“...I think… it’d distract me more if there suddenly was music,” Ren spoke up. “There’s never been music when fighting Shadows before, why should it be there now?”

Another good point. Besides, Minato and Kotone’s playlists, while good, probably didn’t need to end up stuck in the heads of even more people. Even years later, various members of SEES- mostly Kotone and Junpei- had a tendency to randomly burst into song.

Suffice to say, that would probably attract a lot more odd looks here than it did in Iwatodai.

* * *

  
  


It wasn’t unusual for them to hear voices as they progressed through a new location. These voices tended towards being disturbing for a large number of reasons, but it was another thing entirely to hear the world narrated as if it were a location in a video game.

And that was just on the occasion that the ‘narration’ had anything to do with reality at all.

Yukiko blinked up at the ceiling. “Do you think that was a scene from an actual video game, or something? I know none of the places described were around Inaba.”

“That could be a lot of games, though,” Ken pointed out. “Anything that takes place in a city, really.” He could think of multiple places that fit those descriptions just around Iwatodai.

“Not any game,” Naoto corrected. “A large number of video games have the protagonist’s parents missing, likely to deal with the moral question of why they would allow their children to undertake such dangerous adventures.” She paused. “Actually…”

Well, that was an easy enough question to answer. “My uncle’s never around, and my cousin’s six. They don’t notice a thing of what I’m doing.” That still sounded depressing.

“My parents don’t really care what I do as long as I stay in school,” Ren added. “Dad spends a lot of time working, and Mom… actually, I’m not sure what she does.”

“My parents just assume I’m out with Chie. Actually, they might think that we’re dating…” Yukiko trailed off for a moment. “...Oh, that’s what she meant.”

Rise glanced at her. “...Senpai? You okay?”

“Oh? I- I’m fine.” She looked like she was still thinking about something, but nobody pressed her on it.

Naoto pursed her lips, before glancing at Rise and Kanji. “And you?”

“Grandma wants me to go out and make friends. Long as I’m with friends, she’s happy.”

“Honestly, Ma’s probably just glad I haven’t managed to get myself arrested. But she still trusts me with Ted, for some reason… I don’t even know.”

“That’s…” It was hard to describe the expression on Naoto’s face, other than that she was clearly not pleased with these answers.

Ken shrugged. “I mean, at least everyone here has relatives? My senpai are… kind of a mess.”

“Arf!” Koromaru agreed.

“...Do I want to ask?”

“I’m pretty sure that only one of them has both parents, there’s two more that have one each, and none of them are talking to any of their relatives. We had adult supervision once, but that… didn’t end well. I don’t want to talk about it.”

If anything, Naoto seemed to be even more concerned. But she also didn’t say anything.

Maybe she’d decided that she didn’t want to know, after all. That would probably have been the better option.

Besides, however questionable everyone’s living arrangements were, they weren’t exactly relevant to progressing in a video game that left Ken more confused than anything else.

Maybe it would be a good idea to just not pay attention to anything but whatever Shadows they were currently fighting. At least the Shadows still made a certain amount of sense.

Sure, it still wasn’t that much sense, but at least it was something.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This end section partially brought to you by the eternal question of 'what, exactly, does Ren put in his probation diary?' My current assumption is that nobody ever actually reads it.


	62. In Which Games Are Taken Semi-Seriously

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, this is mostly because there's probably a murderer at the end. And they still aren't all that serious.

“Naoto-san, are you… taking notes?” Ren wasn’t quite sure what he’d expected from her, but there she was, with a notepad she’d produced from somewhere he wasn’t certain about.

“I was thinking that we could use this location to give us clues to Kubo’s mental state. Of course, this world will probably never be available to use as evidence in court, but it can at least prepare us for whatever form his Shadow- or Persona- will take at the end.”

“I… don’t think it works that way,” Ken ventured. “I mean, it works sometimes- Akihiko-san and Shinjiro-san are basically twins, and so were their Personas, for a bit, but then things happened and now… well, I know Akihiko-san doesn’t have the same Persona anymore.”

This was all very confusing to hear. Among other things, Ren hadn’t heard of people who weren’t Wild Cards being able to change their Personas before. “What about Aragaki-san?”

“As far as I can tell, Shinjiro-san hasn’t tried summoning a Persona since he got out of the hospital.” When was he in the hospital? This sounded like something that should have come up sooner. “And he ended up there… not that much less than two years ago, actually…” He got the feeling that Ken didn’t really want to talk about this. “I have no idea what he can do now.”

Teddie hopped forward a bit more, his feet squeaking with each and every step he took. “Does it matter, though? None of them are anywhere near here. Unless Kenny’s keeping secrets!”

“No, they aren’t in town.” Ken shook his head. “If they were, you would have heard about it.”

“You didn’t tell us Minato-san was around until he found a dead body,” Ren pointed out. That day had been very memorable for a large number of reasons.

“I didn’t even know he’d be here until he showed up. I made the mistake of mentioning free beef bowls to him, and… there he went.”

Naoto paused. “Would this ‘Minato-san’ have dark blue hair?”

Ren nodded. “He’s… really weird, even for a Persona User. He… seems to think blood on the streets is normal? For some reason?” Sometimes, he sort of wondered what had gone on in Iwatodai, but then something like this happened, and he realized that he didn’t really want to know. Not if it created people like Arisato Minato.

Naoto sighed. “So he really wasn’t joking about taking a two-hour train ride for the sake of a free lunch?” She sounded like she was desperate to be proven wrong.

Ken just shook his head. “You’re best off not trying to understand Minato-san. He… well, he’s one of us, but his decisions… really aren’t the best a lot of the time. If you need an experienced Wild Card for stuff, you’d be better off asking Kotone-san. She’s relatively sane.”

Ren wondered if Ken was fully aware of just how little this was saying.

Maybe that was one of the things he would be better off not knowing.

* * *

  
  


Things went a lot easier now that nobody had more than one element they could exclusively cover. Specifically, the ones who had exclusive elements were Ken, Ren, and Naoto. Ken had Psi, Ren used Frei, and Naoto covered Garu.

Technically, she also had Megido, but its unique properties were more than enough for everyone to insist that it didn’t count.

Either way, they were making good progress. And then the world decided it wanted to teleport them.

“Not this again…” Teddie mumbled, plopping himself down on the ground. “I had enough of this at Yuki-chan’s castle… let me off…” For someone whose powers involved a lot of transportation, he didn’t seem to enjoy it when it was used by something other than him.

“I guess we can’t go hunt for rare Shadows here…” Ken sighed. It was too bad. This place was structured a lot more like Tartarus than the areas before had been- perfect for chasing down helpless enemies and attacking them until they literally exploded into money. “I mean, I didn’t have anything I really wanted to buy, but it’d be nice.”

“I could get a phone…” Ren mused aloud. “...You know, if people wouldn’t ask why I was out buying one all on my own.” Yes. That was a big reason why Ken didn’t have any particular purchases in mind- he was limited to what other people wouldn’t question too much.

Sure, he could stretch that pretty far, but weapons and computers were both just a bit questionable for a thirteen-year-old to be getting by himself.

“Chie and I have been talking about getting scooter licenses,” Yukiko remarked. “The inn has one already, but if I do decide to leave, it’d be nice to have my own vehicle.”

Ken wasn’t sure if that would be more or less weird to pay for in cash than anything else. At some point, someone had to ask why people their age would have so much money, right? Sure, things had been just a bit different in Iwatodai, but in Iwatodai SEES were just about the only people who Mitsuru was ever seen with in public. They had an excuse.

“You know, that does sound nice…” Rise mused. “Fans can’t catch up with me if I just ride away, right?” This didn’t sound like a good way to deal with her problems, but Ken wasn’t sure he had a lot of room to talk when it came to healthy coping mechanisms.

Naoto blinked. “...I’m not entirely sure of your reasoning, but I suppose that I can’t stop you.”

A golden hand walked into Ken’s line of sight. He supposed that hoping that Psiodyne could solve the issue of random teleportation probably wouldn’t be enough.

It’d be nice if it was, though. If only because his other idea was Hamaon, and that almost definitely wouldn’t work. Hamaon never worked when he really needed it to, unless the reason he needed it to was because the alternative was being chased down by a group of Shadows wielding Mudo spells. Which had happened more than once.

...Still, thinking about it, that really was no reason not to try.

* * *

  
  


After a bit more stumbling, a few more fights, and an explanation to Naoto and Rise of why they were always careful to make sure that the chests they opened didn’t make any funny noises, and that they especially didn’t sound like rattling chains, they ended up in a long hallway.

“Do you think we could stop for snacks soon?” Kanji asked. “I know I’m getting tired…”

Ren thought about it. With the help of the fox, it wasn’t impossible to stay healthy here without delving in to their food supplies, but those leaves were expensive and apparently Yukiko had something that she really wanted to use Shadow money to buy, despite how there was probably a good chance this would end with her parents getting in trouble for tax evasion.

“That… might be nice,” He admitted. “We do have food with us, and it’d be nice to have more energy…” Being able to heal by eating was clearly the best part of being a Persona User. “And there’s always powerful enemies part way through these, so we should be getting close… we can stop to eat right after, maybe.” Thinking about it, that actually sounded pretty good.

Teddie immediately swiveled around to face Rise. “Rise-chan, do you know if there’s any beary powerful Shadows nearby? Stronger than anything else around?” He sounded far too excited about the prospect of battle.

Rise narrowed her eyes. “You just want an excuse to eat trail mix, don’t you?”

“Taking a break would be a good way to conserve our energy for later,” Naoto pointed out. “Chances are, there’s going to be a confrontation at the end of this.”

Ren thought that point had been pretty obvious, what with how the guy had presumably committed murder. He was pretty sure that kind of thing tended to lend itself to violent confrontations. He’d like to be wrong, for once, but given the trend so far, that probably wasn’t happening.

So many Shadows to fight. So little time in the day to do so.

Everyone looked at Rise expectantly. She sighed, summoned Himiko, and started scanning.

“...Huh. It’s just… it’s somewhere next to this hallway. Probably through one of the doors on this side.” This actually did narrow things down a lot, but if she was wrong, they’d probably be subjected to a lot more warps.

...Yes, Ren was aware that was wishful thinking. They were probably all going to be warped places either way. But at least if this information was correct, then maybe this was almost over.

As they walked down the hall, they saw no Shadows. However, they did, eventually, encounter what Rise told them was probably the right door.

Ren opened the door. There was a box on the other side of the room, and a Shadow in the middle, which looked like a hand hidden securely under a thick black glove. A Shadow which, now that he thought about it, actually looked really familiar.

Kanji seemed to agree. “Didn’t we see a lot of these in the strip joint? It can’t be all that strong…”

A second Shadow dropped from the ceiling, and the first one used a powerful physical attack that definitely hadn’t been in use by the ones in the strip club.

“That was Deathbound.” Ken cast healing magic on all of them while he spoke, which was actually pretty nice. “Kanji-san, I blame you for this.”

At the very least, Ren supposed that they probably had a good idea of what attacks to throw at the first hand already. And the second one- they’d fought Shadows like that before, too. They were just… a lot stronger now.

Odd. Normally this sort of thing happened the other way around.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, why does no one ever question why the protagonists have so much money?
> 
> Yes, both midbosses of Void Quest can be fought beforehand as normal enemies. The Killing Hand, as stated, appears in the strip club, while the Almighty Hand can be located on the surrounding floors of Void Quest. I'm pretty sure the rest of the midbosses only appear as regular enemies after being fought the first time.


	63. In Which A Game Is Cleared

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also, there's snacks.

Given how they’d all encountered one of the involved Shadow types before, and the other had been in the very last place they were exploring, the fight against them was a lot more challenging than Ken had expected.

Still, one of them could apparently only use one specific kind of attack- and it was Deathbound, which, while powerful, was not kind to the body of whatever used it- and the other was focused entirely on keeping that one in the proper state for combat, at least the strategy was simple.

Ken’s strategy was to do the same as the second hand and keep everyone healthy, preferably without overloading them with magic. Thankfully, that was a lot easier than it used to be. He wouldn’t say they others had really caught up to him, but it was starting to look like they might eventually get there, with sufficient motivation and practice.

Sadly, it did not seem like the world was going to stop giving any of them motivation and practice to get stronger. Even he had to, if only to make up for the fact that combat reflexes and growth spurts did not necessarily go well together. As it turned out, being taller came with downsides, such as being easier to hit, while Teddie and Koromaru could just run under spells targeted at other members of the group. He hadn’t realized he’d miss being able to do that.

Still, the hands eventually fell, the black one going first and giving everyone the relief of no longer having to withstand crushing waves of physical force, and giving them access to the box behind them.

Rise opened the box, pulling out an odd sphere. “Himiko says it’s called an Orb of Darkness,” She said, looking at it. “But she can’t tell me what it does, or anything.”

“We’ll worry about it later,” Kanji shrugged it off. “For now, how about we eat something? That last fight really took it out of us.”

Ren set down his bag, and opened it to bring out a wide variety of snack foods. “Ken-senpai, you remembered to bring the veggies, right?”

“Right here.” It was easier to get away with taking them from the garden, now that the immediate project that Nanako was growing them for was over. “Did anyone else bring something?”

“I tried making something for all of us,” Yukiko said. “It… didn’t turn out quite right, though. I think the only one of us who would have eaten it would be Koro-chan.”

Koromaru blinked at her in confusion. “He might not have anyway, if you think it was that bad,” Ken decided to share. “See, Shinjiro-san’s a really good cook, and he used to make Koromaru’s food when we lived in Iwatodai, so he’s a bit spoiled.” Probably not helped by how everyone kept feeding him steak croquettes while they were inside the TV, but it wasn’t like they’d ever stop.

“Arf!” Koromaru somehow managed to give a show of looking offended. It was easily visible as being just an act, though, as he switched back to excitement the second a piece of steak was on offer. Just as expected.

“Do you really think we’re almost to the top?” Yukiko asked, looking up at the ceiling. “I mean, we have to be, it feels like we’ve been walking forever, but…”

Ken didn’t entirely get why the others were complaining. As long as the floors in these dungeons could be, they still didn’t have any more floors than Thebel. Sure, the Shadows were stronger than the ones in Thebel, but that wasn’t saying much. Any Shadows would be stronger than the ones which lurked in Thebel’s halls.

Still, he pushed that confusion out of mind for now. “Well, we just had that fight, didn’t we? I’m sure we’re almost there.”

He wasn’t entirely sure that Yukiko believed him, but that was fine. If she really wanted an exact answer, she could have just asked Rise.

* * *

  
  


Oddly enough, the Orb of Darkness didn’t actually do anything for the floor it was found on.

What it did do was unlock the door on the very last floor. “It’s a good thing we didn’t find the stairs before we found this,” Yukiko remarked. “We could have had to climb this whole place, all over again.”

Ken wasn’t sure it would have been that bad. Return trips to various areas of Tartarus were always easier than the first time, and not just because the local Wild Cards had had more time to mess around and create whatever Personas would work best for the situation.

Still… he supposed that there was only so much of this graphical mess that a person could take. So it really was nice to be able to open the door right away.

Like it had been the case with Naoto, it was impossible to tell the difference between Kubo Mitsuo and his Shadow, with the exception of the eyes. They both even wore the same eyesearing yellow shirt with a game logo on it.

Neither of them seemed to notice the swarm of Persona Users walking through the door. Almost as if they didn’t exist.

“I am nothing,” One of them said. “You are nothing.”

“No, I’m not!” The other snarled. “I did it, didn’t I? I killed them!”

“Do you truly believe that? Or are you just trying to give a meaning to your sad, worthless existence?”

“Shut up!” The second speaker snarled, and all of a sudden, it was impossible not to know which one of them was the Shadow. It looked almost like an infant, floating above the ground.”

“I am a Shadow,” It spoke, in a voice more robotic than Aigis’, as if someone had decided to take the oldest voice synthesizer there was, and use that to communicate. “Come… I’ll end your emptiness.” No sooner had it finished talking, than the form of the hero of some sort of video game appeared around it, as pixelated as everything else in this game world.

It was probably safe to say that this wasn’t a good thing.

“The actual Shadow is hiding inside that thing,” Rise reported, as the construct raised its sword. “If you can do enough damage to it, you should be able to break through.”

“So, we hit it until it goes down, and then hit it some more?” Kanji checked. “Awesome! Sounds like my kinda fight!” At least someone was excited about this.

The sword came down. It didn’t move with any sort of finesse- more like the Shadow was trying to hammer a nail into place than to fight a group of powerful adversaries.

But then, Shadows didn’t normally use complicated logic. Or maybe the stiltedness of it was the whole point. It was hard to say.

Either way, at least that was an attack which was easier to avoid.

* * *

  
  


Despite what some people would claim, Ren saw a great deal of merit in attacking things several times larger than him with knives. Particularly when the pixelation already did a lot in telling him where, exactly, he needed to slash with sharp objects.

Sadly, there was far less preparation when it came to getting out of blast range of pixel Megidola, 8-bit bombs, or the pile of cubes that the construct collapsed into after taking enough structural damage.

“Renren, are you all right?” Teddie ran over with a rapid series of squeaks, Kintoki-Douji floating behind him. “Here, let me help you!”

Whatever Ren might have thought about Teddie’s capabilities for ice, this was some really nice healing magic. It was a very different flavor of intense from Ken’s sheer power. He still preferred doing it himself, or maybe asking Yukiko, but… it was certainly nice to have variety.

“Thanks, Teddie.” He picked himself up. “I think Naoto-san got hit pretty hard by one of those bombs… maybe you could help her next?”

“All right, then!” The bear ran off through the battlefield, completely ignoring all of the dangers, except to maybe throw an icicle or two at them. “Nao-chan, over here!”

...He was pretty sure they’d be fine.

* * *

  
  


After another round with the giant video game hero, the Shadow was forced to take its regular form. The human simply stared at it.

“I’m not nothing. I’m not!” If this resulted in another fight, Ken was inclined to just advise everyone to leave him to his fate. They clearly wouldn’t be losing anything, aside from maybe Inaba’s general peace of mind, and that had already disappeared weeks ago.

However, this time, the Shadow simply stared blankly at the human, before crumbling away. The human burst into laughter.

“Don’t you see!? I’m not nothing- I’m stronger than anyone! I’m the hero! I’m- I’m-”

“You are coming back with us,” Naoto stated, approaching him with an unreadable expression on her face. “I’m sure the police will be interested to hear about how you escaped from their custody… Assuming, of course, that that is the case.”

He stared blankly at her. Ken wasn’t sure if he’d actually realized it’d be a better idea to stop talking or not, but… something seemed wrong about him.

...Then again, something had always seemed wrong about him.

Naoto sighed. “...You don’t have anything to say in your defense? No more… ranting and raving?”

Still nothing.

“We should just focus on getting him back,” Yukiko suggested. “I mean… we’re pretty sure he at least killed Morooka-sensei, right?”

“His fingerprints were on the murder weapon.”

“Then we should turn him in for that, and figure out what we’re supposed to do afterwards.”

Kanji blinked. “Huh? You think he didn’t do all three?”

“He isn’t a Persona User,” Ren pointed out. “That’s… pretty obvious. I mean, Ken-senpai says he doesn’t have to be, but… We should still think about it. Probably.”

“This doesn’t mean doing anything to get put on television as bait,” Ken spoke up, because he got the feeling that, if he didn’t, someone in the group was going to attempt just that. He even had a few ideas for who, exactly, would be doing it. “If any of us had suggested something like that in Iwatodai, Mitsuru-san would have killed them. It’s just not a good idea.”

Kanji and Naoto were both visibly disappointed by this. Ken wished he could have said he was surprised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Goodbye, Mitsuo. Nobody likes you.
> 
> I've never actually played P4 past this point due to needing to replace my memory card soon after I got there, but the good news is that Naoto's dungeon is now completely irrelevant and the endgame stuff I actually have mostly figured out, so it'll probably work out.
> 
> ...I could also just pick up my Vita again, that'd work, too. My current run's still at Kanji's place, though... I'll figure something out.


	64. In Which Kubo Is Seen Off

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seriously. After this chapter, we're not dealing with him again. I promise.

Sometimes, Ren just had to wonder how nobody had noticed a large group of kids tumbling out of a television set yet. They’d been noticed going in- it was sort of how they’d gotten Naoto- but nobody had happened to show up in time to see them falling into an uncomfortable pile of limbs due to being so desperate to go home they’d basically charged the exit.

They probably weren’t going to do that again. Even if they returned to that world for some reason or another, they would remember that lines existed for a reason.

Or, at least, Ren hoped that they would.

Teddie, Koromaru, and the fox had all escaped the pile of squishedness… or, well, Teddie and Koromaru had. The fox was standing on top of the pile. She jumped down gracefully and stalked off into the store, hopefully with the end goal of going home and not stealing another frozen chicken. Or buying one. It wasn’t like she didn’t have money, and what she did with it was her own business, but… Ren didn’t want to risk being known as the person who encouraged those tendencies, no matter how useful those leaves were.

Either way, it wasn’t necessarily his problem anymore. By the time that the rest of them managed to untangle themselves, she was long gone.

The only reason Kubo hadn’t been at the bottom of the pile entirely was because they hadn’t trusted him not to make a run for it the second he was out in Junes. Which would have been bad, but Ren wasn’t sure anyone would have thought searching for him again would be worth the trouble.

As it was, he still wasn’t really doing anything. He glared at anyone who was close to him, and seemed mildly excited by the prospect of returning to police custody, which was arguably the weirdest thing Ren had ever witnessed, but other than that… nothing.

Naoto, being Naoto, got right to business. “I suppose I should escort him to the nearest adult police officer.” She said the word ‘adult’ like it was some sort of taunt. Given her Shadow, it was hard to blame her.

“That would probably be a good idea,” Ken agreed. “...You know, this is the most progress we’ve really made. Mostly, we’re making sure that people don’t die. Which is important, but...”

But it didn’t feel like enough. Ren wasn’t sure what had happened in Iwatodai, involving the hour he’d only just heard about, people he’d barely met, and events that had only ever been alluded at, but he knew that this lack of progress couldn’t only be frustrating to him.

“It’s definitely the first suspect we’ve found,” Yukiko remarked. “Maybe we should do something to celebrate. ...Oh, but if Naoto-kun’s taking him back to the police, I guess it can’t happen right away, can it?”

“You’d… want to include me?”

“Why not?” Kanji asked. “Sure, we weren’t expecting you to show up, but you still helped us, didn’t you? Sides, you’re the one who’s doing the hard work of turning him in.”

Teddie nodded. “It’d be fun no matter who shows up, but it’ll be even better if you were there, Nao-chan! Also, this gives us more time to decide on food!”

Yukiko sighed. “I can almost make things that are edible… I don’t think I’ll be making that much progress in the next few days, though.”

“And there’s no one who does catering around here, but that’s probably for the best…” Why was that Ken’s first thought? Ren knew that he was friends with someone who was sort of a big deal, but he’d never heard of catering being a major concern before.

Did this group of amateur sleuths really deserve that much fanfare?

“We’d have to figure out where to do things, too… Ma would kill me if you guys messed up any of our fabric…”

“My parents shouldn’t really be home,” Ren noted. “But… also the house hasn’t been cleaned in, like, a week? We’ll get around to it eventually, but… maybe you shouldn’t come over.” There were very few things his parents cared about, but inviting guests over while the house was a mess was almost definitely going to be one of those things.

“...My uncle’s not around that often, either,” Ken said, as if that was some kind of realization, and not a long-accepted fact. “And he acts like he’d like to meet my friends… You’d just have to be willing to spend time with Nanako, too. ...And make sure we don’t crowd the area in front of the television so badly one of us falls through.”

“Arf!” Koromaru sounded almost like he was laughing. Ren wasn’t sure how he managed to get that impression off of a dog, but that was what was apparently happening.

“...If that’s the case…” Naoto still sounded really unsure about this. “Should we exchange contact information, so I can tell you the next time I am free?”

This was not a difficult thing to agree with in the slightest.

* * *

  
  


While Naoto probably didn’t need any help getting Kubo to someone else who claimed to be qualified to deal with this situation, Kanji still figured it couldn’t hurt to accompany her. He trusted Teddie to get home safely, if maybe in possession of a bit less pocket money.

“So, how do you think they’re gonna react when they see us?” He asked.

She took a moment to think about it. “I… wouldn’t know. I haven’t exactly been in this sort of situation before. I don’t suppose you’d had any plans for this kind of thing, either?”

He shrugged. “Plans ain’t really my thing. We… always sort of left that to the kids. Ren’s good with figuring out what we can all do in battle, Ken’s been a Persona User the longest of all of us… Still sounds pretty bad when I say it out loud, though.”

It would have been easier, probably, if the two that had taken charge by default hadn’t also been in middle school. Sadly, sometimes there just wasn’t a choice, and there were only three friendly Persona Users in the entire town, one of which was a dog. If Yukiko hadn’t taken charge, then Kanji wasn’t about to try to, either.

Really, he was pretty sure that, if he was the leader, he’d lead them all into an ambush, or open up one of those trapped chests, so the current situation suited him well enough.

“Yes, most people would question why anyone would leave most of their tactical decisions to children. Or why children were involved in the first place, but I suppose there’d be no leaving them behind once they made their start.”

“Yeah, something like that. Ken’s… real insistent that his age doesn’t mean anything, sometimes.” Mostly around his uncle’s partner. Kanji wasn’t really sure what was going on there, but he’d been reliably informed that at least part of it involved Ken being a bit too closely equated with Nanako. “Get the feeling he’s faced shit for it, before.”

“Being younger does mean being faced with a certain… disrespect,” Naoto agreed. “Though… I haven’t seen much of that, in this group.”

Of course not. The youngest members of the group were all uniquely qualified to deal with things- Ken through experience, Ren by being a Wild Card, and Teddie because he was an actual Shadow and also the only reason they could get home after each trip.

It really, really didn’t do to alienate the one person who could choose to leave you to die.

“Well, I mean… they ain’t that much younger than us. Besides, they know what they’re doing.” Probably. Kanji wasn’t yet ready to rule out the idea that none of them really knew what they were doing. “Or… they got some idea, at least.” They were qualified, was the point. “Sides… I know what it’s like. People look down on me all the time, too.”

Naoto glanced at him. Kubo was completely silent. Kanji took that as a sort of invitation to continue.

“Guys always laugh when they see me sewing stuff, cause they think it’s a girls’ job. Meanwhile, I’m stitching actual armor into people’s outfits so no one can see ‘em.”

“Being different from the established norm can be… hard to live with,” Naoto admitted, adjusting the rim of her cap. “However, you seem to be handling it fairly well.”

“I… wasn’t always. Had to get the others to knock some sense into me.” He desperately hoped she wouldn’t ask for clarification. This really wasn’t how he wanted to have that conversation. “But, you know. I’ve been trying. Think I did pretty well for myself. I mean, armor worked in or not, I still made stuff that could stand up to…” Well. A lot. He wasn’t sure what that said for any aspirations he might have had in fashion design, but it presumably said something. “I’d like to see one of the girls from school do that.”

Naoto nodded, and kept walking silently. Mitsuo was still silent. Kanji wondered how he’d gotten so comfortable with this situation. It certainly wasn’t a position he’d ever expected to be in.

It was… actually really nice, being able to speak freely like that. Maybe he’d be better off doing it more often.

As he thought that, something shifted, and he paused.

“...Kanji-kun? Is something the matter?”

“No, it’s fine. Just thought we’d have run into somebody by now.” Not that they had to worry about Kubo running off again… really, it was sort of worrying… Oh, well. He didn’t matter, either. “Makes it a lot easier to think about things, though.” Thinking, coming to realizations, trying to figure out just what it meant…

Still, he was sure of one thing. ‘Rokuten Maoh’ actually had a nice ring to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mitsuo may or may not have given himself something similar to Apathy Syndrome, but the story is never going to come out and say it, because from this moment forth, he is Irrelevant.
> 
> The party is still happening! It's been put off, but it is still happening.
> 
> I swore, when I first started this arc, that somebody was coming out of it with a different Persona than they started with. Bringing in Naoto early may have messed up my original plans, but I'm working with it.


	65. In Which There Is A Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The team has reached a sort of milestone, and therefore, it is time to celebrate! Preparations are made, and there is a genuine attempt at having a good time.
> 
> The word 'attempt' is sort of important here.

Fortunately, things being settled really didn’t take that long at all. “Nanako, do you know what you’d like for dinner?” Ken asked, wondering if it was worth the attempt to make some sort of sense out of the kitchen, or if it’d be better to just try and sort out all the servings and stuff before everyone else arrived. “Some of my friends are coming over later, and we need to work out what the food will be.”

The gathering of said food would be a collaborative effort between him, Kanji, and Rise. Yukiko had offered to help, as well, saying that she at least definitely knew how to shop for ingredients, but there really didn’t need to be more than three of them handling things.

“Um…” Nanako paused to think about it. “What can I ask for?”

“Anything you’d like.” He paused. “Within reason.” Sure, they had a… pretty hefty budget… what with how much the metalworks was willing to pay for Shadow parts… for some reason… he really needed to ask about that one day… but there were limits.

“Well… I want an omelette.”

Ken didn’t know how to make omelettes. Ken wasn’t sure there was anyone on the team capable of making omelettes. Still… it couldn’t be that hard to learn.

“I’ll see what I can do,” He promised, making a mental note to pick up some extra eggs just in case things went badly enough that his first attempt at an omelette ended up not even being edible. It shouldn’t have been a concern- worst case, he served scrambled eggs instead- but it was probably better to be safe. One of the things he’d picked up when Fuuka was learning to cook was that it was always good to have some sort of backup.

He’d also learned a lot about smoke detectors, but hopefully that bit wouldn’t be necessary.

It was always strange, how Nanako’s eyes seemed to shine when it was Ken who had powers over light. “Really? Thanks, Big Bro!”

...Okay, now he really needed to figure out how to make an omelette. Hopefully someone would be willing to answer their phone at some point in the near future…

* * *

  
  


The planned menu for the party was… in a word, eclectic. They didn’t want it to seem like too big of a deal- Ken had honestly no idea when his uncle was planning on coming home that night, if he was planning on it- but appetizer trays filled with fruit tasted good, even if a slight argument developed over the sort of cheeses they wanted. Rise was under the thrall of the spice gods, while Kanji wanted something milder.

Ken was lactose intolerant, and had exactly zero stake in this, but they were sort of making a scene. “What if Rise-san just… picked up her own block of cheese?” He suggested. “We have the money…” They’d probably get strange looks while checking out, but that was normal.

“All right, fine, if you insist… you all just need some time to mature…” Grumbling, Rise wandered off towards the dairy section.

Personally, Ken wasn’t sure what her definition of maturity was, and was actually sort of afraid to find out. Even if food-based tests of courage wouldn’t even make it into the top ten stupidest decisions he’d ever witnessed or made. Probably. Unless they wanted him to eat a Shadow or something. Snacking on the human psyche seemed like an incredibly bad idea.

“I’m not the only one worried about the kind of things she’ll pick up, right?” Kanji checked. Ken nodded. “Good. ...Actually, I got something I kinda want to ask you.”

“What is it?” He genuinely couldn’t tell if it was important or not.

“Do you know if it’s normal for people who aren’t Wild Card to… well… to have their Personas change?” Right. This was a question that he should have expected to come up eventually. “I remember you saying something like it, but…”

“It… I’m not sure if there’s enough Persona Users around to really know what’s normal,” He admitted. “But… If there’s anything that is for sure… that’s probably it. It’s… happened often enough. Why? Did you get a new Persona?” There was something a bit different about his demeanor, compared to before, but that didn’t necessarily mean anything.

“Um… Yeah. Rokuten Maoh.” It did not escape Ken’s notice that this was the second time in a row that the Emperor of the group had been the first to experience this sort of change. “This kind of thing ever happen to you?” And there it was. A question he had no reason to lie about, but that still made him uncomfortable for a myriad of reasons.

“I, well… yeah.” As much as he would have liked to pretend that he’d only ever had Kala-Nemi, this probably wasn’t the sort of thing he should have been lying about. “It was… a while ago, though. I’ve had Kala-Nemi… just about as long as I’ve been using a Persona.” He couldn’t exactly say it was untrue, when there’d been exactly one major fight he’d shown up for. “It doesn’t really matter anymore. I’m pretty far from the person I was back then.”

“Yeah, I guess, if it was that long ago…” Kanji trailed off. “You think she’ll be back, soon?”

“...We may have to talk her down from picking up some extra seasonings.”

* * *

  
  


Fitting eight Persona Users into a single house with one other person without any of them stumbling and falling through the television was an exercise in being careful and figuring out everyone’s standards for personal space. Thankfully, Koromaru and Nanako were small, so that was a bit of extra room to stretch out, but that really didn’t leave all that much.

The tables, meanwhile, held a collection of food. A misshapen omelette for Nanako, that had taken three attempts to get right- and one of those earlier attempts had been stolen by Rise, who had proceeded to cover the top of it in things Ren had never eaten, but was reliably informed that they would probably set his mouth on fire. There were also vegetables from the thriving garden outside, a platter of fruit and cheese, a few more fruits, one large bag of pretzels, and a small selection of packaged muffins.

If this had been a large party, thrown by adults, Ren would have been more than a little disappointed at the selection on display. After all, adults were supposed to do more than just grab things off the shelf at random. But this was just them looking for an excuse to spend time together and also eat, so the most important thing was that the food was good.

So they all relaxed and spent time together. Teddie seemed to have struck up a quick friendship with Nanako, and the two of them were now playing with Koromaru. Yukiko and Kanji tried explaining to Rise that her spice tolerance wasn’t something that most people had, and Naoto listened in with a questioning look on her face.

Maybe she was wondering just how one person could handle so much spice. Ren wished he had an answer for her. As it was, he was just glad that none of them had tripped through the TV.

He glanced at Ken. “Did you ever think, when we started, that our group would have this many people in it?” Still probably not the safest question to ask when Nanako was in the room, but it didn’t jump into the matter of them all having powers of some sort or another, so it was probably okay. It was the kind of thing that probably deserved to be asked, at some point.

“Well…” Ken trailed off, as if in thought. “I mean, the group in Iwatodai was bigger… but Iwatodai’s a big city, so it makes sense that there’d be more people like us. I… actually didn’t think I’d find anyone like me here in Inaba, but… here we are.”

Hearing it put like that… he thought that was pretty sad. The only reason Ken had found people like himself was because this peaceful and quiet town had suddenly lost all of its peace. The quiet had been fading away over time, as well.

Nothing made sense, and the house was full of Persona Users. Ren couldn’t help but wonder if those two facts were connected at all.

Before he could ask Ken what he thought, the front door opened. “I’m back.”

“Oh! Dad’s home!” Nanako stood up and rushed to the front of the house. “Dad! Dad! All of Big Bro’s friends are here!”

“I can see that. Amamiya, Amagi, Tatsumi… Kujikawa and Shirogane?” It was hard to blame him for sounding confused. Rise had only been added to the group relatively recently, and not even they had been able to see themselves adding Naoto to the team.

“Dojima-san.” If Naoto was uncomfortable by this at all, she didn’t look like it. “I encountered Amada-kun and Junes the other day, and he was… insistent… on inviting me over.” There were, of course, a lot of steps missing, but Ren supposed that those all involved things that nobody would ever believe, unless they were involved in them as well.

“Ken-kun’s really friendly like that,” Rise agreed. “It’s… sort of surprising he doesn’t have more friends his age.”

“Not really,” Ren found himself saying. “I think everyone in his class is sort of jealous of how smart he is.” Or how he came from the city. Thinking about it, it was probably a good thing that nobody at their school knew about the whole ‘superpowers’ deal.

“I’m not that smart…” Ken mumbled. “High schoolers are just easier to talk to, that’s all.”

Ren wondered how much of that boiled down to how most of the Persona Users in Inaba were in high school. Even if Ken’s family wasn’t around, though, it didn’t seem like the sort of thing that would be very nice to ask.

“...I see.” The man sounded almost concerned, and it was really, really hard to blame him. “Well, try not to let the house fall apart around me, I have work to do.”

“Actual work?” Ken asked, standing up. “Or… that thing we talked about before?” This sounded a lot like a conversation that the rest of them didn’t need to be present for.

Teddie leaned over to Nanako. “Nana-chan, do you know what they're talking about?”

She shook her head. “I know Dad and Big Bro don’t always get along, but… I’ve never seen them fighting before.” Did this look like a fight to her? Ren could… actually, he could sort of see it. There was a tension present in Ken that hadn’t been there even when he was having a giant pixel sword swung at him.

“That is actual work.” No real answer. All of the Persona Users who had come there for food started glancing around and, if they were anything like Ren, wondering if it would be a good idea to leave.

“Is it really, or did you just decide that it was the most important thing you could do with your life? There’s a difference.”

At this point, Ren wouldn’t have been surprised if Ken started glowing, the power he kept hidden away shining out in full force. But here, outside of the TV, power didn’t come so easily, and perhaps that was the one thing keeping him from doing so.

“If there is, I’m not sure someone who’s in middle school would be able to see it.” As one, everyone except for Ken and his uncle decided to press themselves into the edges of the room, in the hopes that it would draw less attention than if they just stood up and left. Ren ended up just a bit too close to the television for his liking, but so long as he didn’t just tumble through, he was sure it would be fine.

...Well. Relatively fine. Things had sort of spiralled downhill a lot faster than he’d thought was possible.

“...You never asked anyone what happened to Mom, did you?” Huh. So things hadn’t hit rock bottom yet. Maybe it wouldn’t be the worst idea to make his escape through the TV. Even if one of his friends disappearing into another world probably wasn’t how Ken wanted to resolve this.

Ken’s uncle seemed particularly uncomfortable with this turn in the conversation. “They told me it was an accident, and that it upset you enough that-”

“It was an accident,” Ken agreed, cutting him off. “But I wasn’t imagining things.” Ren watched as Ken walked past his uncle, to the door of the house, and left without another word. Koromaru stood up from where he’d been laying down next to Nanako and went after him.

This was… definitely not how he’d expected his evening to go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The biggest consequence of Naoto joining early- shuffling things around so she has time free means that, technically, Dojima could have time free, and therefore drama.
> 
> This is the point where I'd recommend counseling if I hadn't already been doing so throughout this whole thing.


	66. In Which There Is Drama

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tensions in the Dojima family have finally come to a head, with Ren and the other members of the team as witnesses.
> 
> Ken tries to cope with this.

It was dark outside, and Ken was running.

Those two facts wouldn’t be considered intertwined by most people. They’d just see a kid in a hurry, and the darkness would prevent them from seeing anything even if they looked closer.

Most people hadn’t experienced the Dark Hour. Even fewer had spent much time in Tartarus. There were no chains, here, but it wasn’t like those had ever been Ken’s only motivation for running away to… wait… where was he going, anyway?

He forced himself to slow down and actually look at where he was. He wasn’t quite sure he recognized the street he was on, but then, it wasn’t like he’d ever taken to exploring Inaba in the evenings. Not enough time, too much risk of being caught out late by people who would just see a child wandering through a town with a murderer on the loose, and not a strong Persona User.

“Arf!” He turned around to see a white streak following him down the road.

“Hey, boy.” He crouched down, and reached to pet Koromaru. “You followed me?”

Koromaru whined and nuzzled him.

“I… guess I made you worry, huh? Sorry. It’s just…” Maybe the situation in the Dojima household had always been destined to boil over. Maybe he’d messed it up himself by being too confrontational. He didn’t know.

His hand slipped into his pocket, and he pulled out his phone. Without really thinking about it, he dialled the first number that came to mind, still blinking tears out of his eyes.

For a moment, Ken couldn’t hear anything but ringing on the other end, but he still got an answer eventually.  _ “What is it?” _ He didn’t sound pleased, but then, it was pretty late.

“H-hey, Shinjiro-san,” He breathed out. He hadn’t realized just how relieving it was to actually hear a friend’s voice after months of mostly just communicating via text.

_ “Ken? Is something wrong?” _ Was he that obvious, that he could hear it in his voice?

“Th-that… I…” Was there any good way for him to put this into words? It was always an uncomfortable subject, and those always just led to… “...I want to go home.”

_ “...Kid?” _

“I want to go home,” He repeated, clutching his phone maybe a bit tighter than he needed to. “I miss everyone, and I never know what I’m supposed to say to people, and-”

_ “...Hold on a moment, I think Koto wants in on this.” _ There was a slight commotion on the other end of the line.  _ “Okay, start back from the part where you said you missed us.” _

“I-I keep saying things without thinking about… if it’s really a good idea or not.” Did that make a bit more sense? Maybe? He wasn’t sure, talking to people wasn’t exactly the easiest thing in the world. If it were, he wouldn’t have been in this situation. “And- and it turns out there’s a lot I’m not okay with, and I didn’t- I never even realized how not okay I was with it, because you- everyone back home already knows not to poke at it.”

_ “Could you tell us what happened?” _ Kotone asked.  _ “Just a few days ago, you were insisting that you didn’t actually want to be kidnapped, and now…” _

_ “Ken’s all right with being kidnapped now?” _

_ “No one invited you to join in, Aki!” _ Ken found himself smiling despite himself. Some things never changed. Even if theirs was the second-most likely apartment he’d regularly stayed in to blow up, according to Aigis, and first place was taken by the one shared between Minato, Junpei, and Chidori because all three of them were some flavor of pyromaniac.

“I-I’m fine if Akihiko-san listens in.” Really, the more of them there were, the better.

_ “All right, but are you going to tell us why you’re so upset now?” _

He nodded, before remembering that they couldn’t see him. “A-all right. So, my uncle is… he’s almost never around. Because he’s busy with work. Just leaves me and Nanako to do things, and that’s great for… well, TV stuff, but not so much…” Well, anything else really. No real support, not much time spent together… No real chance to form a positive relationship at all. Or to have Ken not be the one who had to constantly answer heavy questions.

_ “Neglectful guardians are the worst,” _ Kotone agreed.  _ “Sure, leave the thirteen-year-old alone all the time, this will definitely not end with a tennis ball smashing the window.” _

Somehow, the more Ken heard about the Wild Cards’ upbringings, the less he wanted to know about them. “That’s… well… we haven’t broken anything yet?” This was probably not helping his case at all.

_ “No, but something clearly went more wrong than usual,” _ Shinjiro remarked.

“I-I…” There really wasn’t any way for him to deny that. “It’s… I had my friends over. My team. That I do stuff with. It was… supposed to be like a party. Because we’d found our first suspect, even if he probably only ever killed one person. It was… sort of nice.” Everyone had been together, they’d been getting along, and they hadn’t even needed a cascade of disasters to do it. “And- and my uncle didn’t have any problem with them being there, really, but- but then he said he’d brought work home, a-and…” And that was when everything started to go downhill.

_ “D-does he bring work home a lot?” _ Kotone asked. Ken couldn’t honestly say it happened a lot because he couldn’t say it was that often that his uncle was home to begin with.

“I-It’s not… that he has work that I have a problem with. It’s- the stuff he brings home. I mean, I guess that doesn’t make any sense, but…” He stopped for a second to force himself to breathe. “Last April. My aunt died. Hit and run. And my uncle’s been… looking into it, ever since.”

_ ”For a whole year? That sounds…” _

“You can tell we’re related, huh?” He forced himself to laugh. “But… he didn’t do anything like that when Mom died, and when I brought it up, he just… brushed it off cause I’m a kid. It’s not… I didn’t stick around too long after that.

_ “...Please tell me you haven’t run away.” _

“Not… technically?” It probably said something that he didn’t even have an answer to that. “I just… couldn’t stay there much longer.”

_ “Ken, when has refusing to deal with your problems ever worked?” _

_ “Yeah, just look at Shinji.” _

_ “I did just fine!” _

_ “You spent four months in a coma!” _

_ “Yeah, but that was after I came back.” _ This probably wasn’t something Ken should have been laughing about. But at least it meant it wasn’t just him the others were worrying about anymore.

Besides, it wasn’t like he didn't have anything to say about it, himself. “I wouldn’t call what happened dealing with your problems.” None of them had been very good, back then, at dealing with their problems. He wasn’t sure he could even say he’d gotten better.

Maybe if he could… he wouldn’t have been in this situation.

* * *

  
  


Nobody at the Dojima household was really sure what had happened. They’d gotten the basics- Ken disagreed with his uncle about something, and it had very clearly escalated- but the details? Those were a bit tricky.

“Do you think we should go to find him?” Rise suggested. “He sounded pretty upset, and I don’t know how we’d help, but… Maybe we could do something?”

“I dunno…” Teddie sighed. “I’m not even sure what happened. Kenny could be anywhere!”

Ren stood up, figuring that absolutely no problems would be solved anymore by him sitting dangerously close to the TV. “I mean, we can’t exactly just… sit around here.” For all they knew, Ken could end up shoved through a television set, though with his powers he’d probably be fine until the next day, if that were the case. “And he can’t have gone that far.”

Of course he could have gone that far. Whether it was due to being a Persona User or general fitness, Ken and Koromaru were easily the fastest members of their team. It was great when something was weak to Hama or Mudo and they needed it to disappear.

It was a lot less great when they’d decided it was a good idea to vanish into the night.

“Y-you’re gonna be looking for Big Bro?” Nanako stood up. “Can- can I come, too?”

Desperately searching for an out, they all looked at the girl’s father, who seemed just as shocked as them that this was even happening.

“Nanako, it- it’s almost time for you to go to bed. And it’s dangerous outside, anyway.”

“But, Dad… I want to help Big Bro!”

“No, Nanako.”

Nanako pouted and sat back down, fixing her gaze on Ren. “You’d better make sure Big Bro’s okay, all right?”

“I-I will,” He stammered, not sure what else he was supposed to do when faced with a determined little girl who had big, round eyes. “I promise. Ken-senpai’ll come back safe and sound.” She nodded, as though satisfied.

Great. He supposed he was going to be held to this now.

They all left the house quickly, as though desperate to escape the tense atmosphere. It probably would have gone by faster if Ken’s uncle hadn’t followed them.

“Dojima-san, can you explain a bit of what Amada-kun was talking about earlier?” Naoto asked. “It might help us to understand where he’s gone.”

The man sighed. “My sister died a few years back, due to a drunk driving incident. I didn’t hear about it until a long time after it happened, but apparently Ken… kept insisting that it was murder. Or that there was a monster involved.”

Ren thought that this probably wasn’t how Ken wanted the others to learn this information. “Naoto-san, can I come with you to look?” He asked. “If we go in groups of two, we might be able to find him faster.”

“...That sounds like a good idea, actually,” Kanji agreed. “Hey, Ted, you wanna help sniff Ken out for me?”

“I-I dunno if it’ll work, my nose isn’t that good anymore… But I can try!” Determination shone in his eyes, visible even in the poor lighting. It helped that Teddie had never been very able to guard his emotions.

Yukiko glanced at Rise. “I guess that leaves me any you, Rise-chan. It’s too bad you can’t just track him down by thinking about it really hard…”

“That’s not going to stop me from trying,” Rise declared. “Don’t worry, Dojima-san, we’ll make sure Ken-kun comes home safe and sound!”

With that, the six of them split off into the night. Ren wished he had the same confidence as Rise… but then, she’d always made confidence sound easy. It probably came from being up on stage all the time, or something. He knew he’d never be able to manage it. Arsene preferred hiding away in the darkness just a bit too much for that.

As they left the earshot of the sole adult in the area, he glanced at Naoto. “Um… Ken-senpai talked with me a bit, once, about… what Dojima-san just said. He- well, I asked him if it had been a Shadow, back then, and he agreed with me, so…” It was important to make sure she had all the information, right? Especially when she’d already started to ask about it?

“...I guess that explains the monster part of things,” She replied, her gaze fixed on the road ahead of her. “Though, it still makes me wonder…”

Naoto trailed off, and Ren was left with no idea of what she was talking about. It was… well, sort of like Ken, whenever he brought up something about the past.

A past which, the more he heard about it, sounded more and more concerning, while still opening up several questions that were left unanswered. A past which he never talked about in any sort of detail.

A past which was rapidly becoming all too relevant.

It would probably be a good thing to find him quickly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, the reason Aki and Kotone live with Shinji is because they are in basically a permanent state of concern about his well-being. For good reason. It's just that they aren't particularly low-stress people, either.


	67. In Which Ren Finds Ken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ren and Naoto go off on their own to search for Ken, and eventually end up getting results.

“Ken-senpai!” Ren called, glancing around in such a way that reminded Naoto of people who were searching for lost pets. Admittedly, trying to find Koromaru was another one of those things that needed doing, but he’d presumably be in the same place as Ken.

“You’ve known Amada-kun the longest out of all of us,” She noted. “Is there any place in particular you think he’d go to?”

He shook his head. “Ken-senpai… he doesn’t really seem that attached to anyplace in Inaba. He’s willing to go anywhere I suggest, but… the only places he seems to care about at all are the garden and Junes, and I don’t think he’s gone to Junes.”

It was a bit late at night to be visiting the store, and even later to be diving into another world, if that was the part that Ren was implying Ken cared about.

It was still a bit strange that someone who had been in Inaba for months wouldn’t have displayed at least some preference for one location or another, but… maybe Ken just didn’t get out much. “I suppose that leaves us to search the entire town.”

Ren sighed. “I guess… At least, he’s probably not alone, cause he’ll have Koro-chan with him. So he probably won’t get into too much trouble…” He didn’t even sound sure of it.

Naoto didn’t blame him. Certain parts of the town at night could definitely be unsettling, and that was without taking into account the fact that Ken had a Persona, and televisions were everywhere. Danger could lurk behind any corner.

“Actually, speaking of Koromaru… do you know if Amada-san takes him on walks? If so, is there a particular route they tend to use?”

“Through the shopping district, down by the Samegawa, and then all the way up to that big hill.” She must have looked surprised by the length of the route, because Ren blinked at her, adding, “They’re both Persona Users, so they’re already in better shape than most people. If they really wanted to disappear… I don’t think there’s anyone around who could find them.”

This was obviously not very reassuring.

* * *

  
  


_ “Look, I’m not sure what my life choices have to do with this, anyway,” _ Shinjiro complained.  _ “We’re talking about Ken’s problems right now. Just because they come from the same place doesn’t mean they have anything to do with each other.” _

Even without being able to see the people he was talking to, Ken could tell that this was futile, and that Shinjiro was only saved from being hugged into submission by the fact that they were on the phone.

_ “None of you know how to solve your own problems and apparently I’m the closest person around to a therapist,” _ Kotone stated. _ “I know it’s definitely not Minato-kun… he’s a horrible enabler.” _ It was very hard to argue with that. Minato just wasn’t any good at saying no to people.

_ “What about me!?” _ Akihiko complained.

_ “...You have gotten better, sort of, but I still wouldn’t say you’re any good at it.” _

It was hard to say she was wrong. Ken wasn’t sure any of them had had healthy coping mechanisms, back when the Dark Hour was still a thing, and these days they were getting better mostly by virtue of not having an hour of the day set aside for Shadow hunting.

Not that they weren’t getting better, but… SEES had sort of been a dumpster fire. To say the least. The fact that none of them had gotten themselves killed was nothing short of a miracle.

_ “Look, Shinji’s right, let’s go back to talking about Ken.” _ Ken had honestly been dreading the moment that one of them said that.  _ “So, what’s the plan to not get arrested for kidnapping?” _

He groaned. “I’m not that desperate.” Sure, going back to Iwatodai would be… really nice… but he just wasn’t sure it would be worth the risk to the others.

_ “Do you want to come home or not, Ken?” _

“I do want to go home, just not enough to get all of you arrested.” He thought they’d had that conversation before. “...Also, it might be a good idea to stick around long enough to make sure nobody else is going to be murdered.” Even if the others could probably handle this without him…

“Ken-senpai!” He heard, and he glanced away to see Ren running up to him, followed closely by Naoto. “There you are! We’ve been worried about you.”

“Ren-san… Naoto-san…” He really wasn’t sure how to respond to this. “You came looking for me?”

Ren blinked at him. “You did kind of… run off in the middle of something. And then Nanako-chan made us promise to look for you…”

_ “You ran out on Nanako-chan!?” _ Why was this the thing Shinjiro most disapproved of?

“N-not really… she was just in the room at the time. I… wasn’t really paying much attention to anyone, except my uncle, and I… already told you how that went.” It was funny, how dealing with someone he was supposed to care about left him hurt, while he was happy when talking to someone he’d tried to hate. It just wasn’t in a good way. “She’s… probably really worried...”

He hadn’t even thought about her. Just about getting away from all of the buttons that kept constantly being pushed with no signs of stopping.

“I’m sure Dojima-san will be glad to see you back safe, too.” He was sure that Naoto was saying it to be kind, but…

“I… guess it’ll be more comfortable to sleep in my own bed,” He finally admitted. “Ah, Shinjiro-san, everyone, I’ll talk with you later, all right?”

_ “All right!” _ Kotone chirped.  _ “But, before you go, how much money do you normally get from Shadows, chests… everything?” _

“...I’m not sure if it’s enough for what I think you’re saying, but you did always get money faster than the rest of us…” She ran through it just as quickly, of course, but it wasn’t like there hadn’t been enough left for her to live off of for the time being. Probably more, if she ended up spending the summer inside the TV. “Just, um… remember you won’t be able to leave that world without Teddie’s help.” Maybe if he kept reminding her, she wouldn’t attempt to fund a vacation purely off of money gained from another world.

...Then again, it wouldn’t be the most insane thing that she had ever done. It wouldn’t even be the most insane thing she’d ever succeeded at.

Still… it’d be nice to see her again. Even if he did sometimes wonder how she could even exist.

* * *

  
  


A lot of people wouldn’t understand what Ken meant, when he said that he was scared to go back. It wasn’t that he found his uncle frightening- after so long of battling against the darkest parts of humanity, it became very difficult to be scared of an ordinary human- but it was… intimidating, to see the house with the lights still on.

His uncle was waiting for him when he opened the door, a set of old newspapers spread out that only proved to show just how similar the two of them were, in all the worst ways.

“You’re back.” He didn’t sound particularly angry or worried, which was arguably the most unsettling part of this. “Would you care to explain where you’ve been?”

Ken shrugged, because it was hard to explain exactly where he’d gone off to, other than ‘away.’ And that didn’t seem like anywhere near a good enough explanation.

Of course, his idea of a good enough explanation didn’t necessarily correspond with anyone else’s, but that was besides the point.

“I was… um…” He’d started running in whatever direction his feet wanted to take him, well after nightfall. Was it so surprising he couldn’t give a very good description? “Somewhere.”

“That’s not an answer.”

“I-I’m not sure I could give you one.” What was he going to do, ground him? He couldn’t really do that without being there to enforce it. “I just… I needed to be somewhere else.” Anywhere but this empty house, lived in but never really made into a home, with a mess that piled up less because of life, and more from general neglect.

It probably said something that the arrangement where he didn’t necessarily have a permanent residence left him feeling more supported than this.

His uncle heaved a sigh. “Whatever the reason, you shouldn’t be going out at night. Even if we’ve- well, it’s just not safe.”

Ken wanted to protest that he could take care of himself. That if he got into a fight, he could win for sure so long as he had access to something long with a pointy end, and that he’d seen other weapon types in action enough times to at least stand a chance. That if it ever felt like his life was in real danger, there was a power hiding just underneath his skin, ready to burst out if the time came when he needed it, and that had been there for quite some time.

But he couldn’t say that. His uncle was a normal person, and it was probably for the best that he was. So, instead, he gave a stiff nod and went straight upstairs to bed, wondering why his life had needed to take this particular turn to begin with, when he’d been perfectly happy before.

He knew that there were reasons for it. Some of them were his own.

But he thought he would have been happier if this had never come up in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I probably don't have to point out that nobody in SEES makes good life choices, but I'm going to do it anyway.
> 
> Thinking about it, it's probably a good thing Nanako has role models that can sway her away from delinquency.


	68. In Which It Is Summer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer break has begun, and that means Ren has lots of free time, and no idea what to do with it.
> 
> His friends, however, do have ideas.

The thing about summer vacation was that, in a town as small as Inaba, there wasn’t all that much to do. No matter what time of year it was, there were always the same activities available, it was just that now there was more time to do them.

So, with the exception of school, people would keep doing the same thing. Ren had seen Shu frantically looking through the bookstore earlier, but other than that, it was all mostly just more of the same.

Teddie, however, was new to town, and apparently found even this slight change in everyone’s schedules completely fascinating. “What are you supposed to do all day?”

Ren shrugged. “I think some of the older kids who have gardens will be growing veggies and stuff, but I don’t think anyone actually has plans.” If they did, it had never come up back when they still had school. “If they do, it probably doesn’t take them out of Inaba. I’d have heard all about it if they did.” People could be predictable that way. And just about every kid in his age group wanted the chance to explore beyond the confines of their small town.

Honestly, given that fact, it was sort of a surprise Ken wasn’t more popular. He could probably have told them all about it. His life couldn’t have entirely revolved around fighting Shadows and stuff, after all.

“So… you’ve got all this extra time, and nothing else to do?”

“I mean, that’s not a bad thing. What sort of stuff do you do during the day?”

“Well… I can knit, and color things, and build models! And Kenny says I can probably start going to school next semester, if I want!” With the excitement in his voice at that last sentence, it was easy to see that he wasn’t human. However, this exuberance was just as quick to fade, his gaze slipping away. “Um… speaking of Kenny… is he...?”

“I… don’t know,” Ren admitted. He wanted to say that Ken would be just fine, except he had no way of knowing that. “He… even when Naoto-san and I found him, he… still seemed really upset.” And given what the conversation had been beforehand, could they blame him?

Teddie looked down sadly. “...Oh. I- I hope he starts feeling better soon.”

That made two of them.

* * *

  
  


Encountering Ken again was as simple as waiting to see him go by with Koromaru. It was a piece of his schedule that seemed to be immutable, when they weren't planning a daring rescue mission in a world filled with Shadows and fog.

He seemed a bit listless today, however, walking by a lot more slowly than usual. Koromaru padded sedately next to him, and was the first to notice Ren’s presence. “Arf!”

“Huh? What is it?” Ren silently waited for Ken’s gaze to follow that of his dog. “O-oh, Ren-san.”

“Hey, Ken-senpai. Teddie wants to know if you’re feeling better now. He’s been worried about you.” He’d been worried, too, but he wasn't sure how important that was in comparison.

“I- I guess he would be.” Ken provided no answers to his questions. Koromaru walked up to Ren and begged for pets. Ren decided to pet Koromaru.

“So… are you feeling better?” He asked. “It’s… it’s not just Teddie who’s worried.”

“...A little.” This wasn’t reassuring. “Kotone-san’s probably going to spend at least some of the summer here, Akihiko-san will want to at least see what kind of Shadows are in the TV, and where those two go, Shinjiro-san’s never very far away, so… I guess it depends how much help Teddie feels like giving them. ...And how much Shinjiro-san is willing to stay with me while those two go exploring.” Okay, most of that made some amount of sense.

“...Stay with you? Isn’t he a Persona User?” He could have sworn Ken had said something like that, even if Shinjiro himself felt more like a normal person than the others did.

“Yeah, but he hasn’t used his powers since… well… a long time ago.” Ren was pretty sure he’d heard something about a hospital at some point, but this probably wasn’t the time to ask about that. “And he never really liked having them, either, so…”

That part felt strange, when Ren thought about it. He couldn’t imagine someone not liking their Persona- how could they not, when a Persona was a part of them? Sure, he had his own preferences, but Arsene was his more than anything else was, and that was why he was so attached. The only bad thing he could see about having a Persona was that the use of said powers was usually accompanied by some form of mortal peril.

Still, at the same time… “I guess it wouldn’t be a good idea to try using a Persona if you didn’t really want to.” Even if not wanting to was something difficult to understand. “The… well, the people in the Velvet Room say Personas come from peoples’ hearts, so…”

“It… can go pretty badly,” Ken agreed with a wince. “I’m okay with spending time with Shinjiro-san, anyway, so I may as well do it while the others are exploring.”

“...You make it sound like you’re his babysitter, or something.” Which was a really strange feeling to get when it concerned his friend and someone who was out of high school, but then, the entire year could be classified as ‘really strange,’ so there wasn’t much of a change.

He actually laughed a little. “That’d be… interesting. But it’s not really like that. It’s just… Shinjiro-san’s not always okay, and it’s important that he has someone nearby who can tell him…” He trailed off, shaking his head. “Never mind. It’s not important.”

This sounded like the sort of thing that was probably important. But Ken wasn’t explaining, and Ren wasn’t sure there was any sort of good way to ask.

He’d just have to hope that the way it was important wasn’t something that involved him.

* * *

  
  


Before the whole incident with her following them into a television, Ren could count the number of times he’d encountered Shirogane Naoto on one hand. She was a bit less elusive now, for some reason, but that might just have been how Arsene pulled Ren in the direction of his friends who had some sort of free time, particularly his fellow Persona Users.

“Ren-kun,” She greeted him once she saw him, from her spot where she didn’t seem to be doing anything at all. “I wouldn’t suppose you have time to talk?”

“Summer break’s just started,” He pointed out. “In a small town like this… there’s nothing but time.” Cloud-watching was good for relaxation, not so much feeling like he’d accomplished anything.

“I’m sure there’s more potential pastimes than you realize,” She stated. “Though… I suppose that, at your age, they might not be much interest to you.”

He glanced at her. “What sort of things do you mean?”

“Well…” Naoto trailed off, as if thinking of the exact right way to frame her next sentence. “Are you aware that your Persona seems to be based off of a fictional character?”

“Ken-senpai did say something about that,” Ren admitted. “And he said he had one of those books, but… I didn’t really think about it at the time. It didn’t seem important. Are there a lot of books about him?”

“Well, the first of those stories was released a hundred years ago, so as you can imagine, there has been plenty of time for a collection to build up.” Okay, when she put it like that… “I… used to read stories like that a lot, when I was your age.”

“Really? A detective reading stories about a thief?”

“I was running out of detective stories. And they were interesting- I doubt I’ll ever have need to search for the methods used in the books, but… It was close enough to fall into my sphere of interest.” She seemed oddly defensive about this… Was it that big of a deal?

He nodded along. “All right. So… are they any good?” While his parents probably wouldn’t care too much if he went out at night, it was always nice to have something to do in the evenings.

“I am, in fact, recommending them for a reason.” All right, fair point. “Actually, I believe I may have a collection of stories sitting around somewhere, if you’re interested in borrowing them.”

“I’ll consider it,” He replied. “But I… it should be any trouble getting them for myself, as long as the bookstore has it. And my parents… they shouldn’t notice if I have to go to Okina for a bit. They’re… really busy.”

Naoto seemed a bit concerned by his words. Ren wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do to fix that.

But the Fortune Arcana was now shining brightly in the back of his mind, and that at least had to count for something.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: So, you’re really going to be here? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Yeah. It’ll just be the three of us and Aigis, though, and she’s coming because… I don’t know the reason. Probably Koto lost a bet with Arisato, but it might also just be that she’s worried about you. Could be either. _

_ Amada Ken: It doesn’t matter. It’ll be good to see her in person again, even if we’ll probably have to explain a few things about Teddie… _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: It’ll be fine. She has a sense of self-preservation. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Yeah, I guess. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about something since the other day. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Are you going to let us kidnap you now? _

_ Amada Ken: It’s still not worth the legal trouble. But I’ve been thinking that, with everything that’s been happening… maybe I should tell them about why I was upset, sort of. Or… I could tell Ren, at least. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...Koto says that it’s important to be able to talk about your problems. Also, these are your friends, you don’t have to ask me to be able to tell them things. _

_ Amada Ken: You’re going to be here in just a couple of weeks. And it’s just as much about you as it is about me. I think it’s sort of important you have a say in this. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: I promise I won’t care overly much about the opinions of a bunch of kids living in the middle of nowhere. And you know these people better than I do- if you think you can trust them, go ahead. _

_ Amada Ken: ...All right. I’ll see you on the thirteenth, then. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here the story has reached the point where it is sort of off the rails, except canon hasn't quite been broken like a stick yet, so the train will somehow land safely on another piece of track after a few dozen detours in which it will probably run over a flock of birds.
> 
> ...I may have lost track of the metaphor at some point.


	69. In Which Ken Tells A Story

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not something he particularly wants to talk about, but he's going to do it anyway.

Even after having come to a decision, after realizing that maybe it would be for the best if somebody knew the truth, it still wasn’t easy to bring himself to actually do it.

In the end, he decided to tell two people about what happened- Ren and Naoto. He trusted Ren the most of anyone on the team, and Naoto was smart enough she could probably figure out what happened on her own, if he kept letting things slip the way he had been, particularly if Shinjiro would be in town soon. It would be better to explain everything now, because at least then it probably wouldn’t blow up at the worst possible moment.

It might have been nice if the others knew, too, but as that would require telling them, he decided that he would at least put it off for the immediate future. At least until Shinjiro had been in Inaba, and gone again. Odds were they wouldn’t figure it out on their own.

But… even then, knowing who he wanted to tell… how was he supposed to go about this? Last time, he’d just sat on it until it exploded…

...It would probably be a good idea not to have a repeat of that. For a large number of reasons.

Well, no point in procrastinating any farther, now that he’d made his choice. He pulled out his phone.

_ Amada Ken: Naoto-san, do you know that big hill in the middle of town? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: It has not escaped my notice. _

_ Amada Ken: I… I have something to tell you and Ren-san, but just the two of you. I can get Ren-san myself whenever I want, but would you have time to meet us on that hill? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: ...With Kubo’s arrest, the police have decided they are severely less in need of my services, despite how… questionable his ties to the first two murders are. _

Maybe he did have more reasons to trust her, beyond how the odds were that she’d figure things out on her own. Not that he could be entirely certain until he’d actually told her, but… it was happening, now. Everything had started, and he couldn’t stop it without having to answer some very awkward questions that were probably worse than what he’d be trying to avoid.

Still, more importantly, this meant that she would be free later. Step one completed.

Step two, acquire Ren, would probably be a bit more difficult due to Ren’s lack of a phone. Still, now that he’d gotten started, Ken wasn’t about to let that stop him.

If he lost his nerve now, he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to bring himself to try again.

* * *

  
  


Ren had not had any plans for the day. In fact, the start of summer break had scuttled his plans for the next month, because now he no longer had the convenient fact that, if he needed to find someone, he could generally meet up with them so long as he knew what school they attended.

It was nice, sometimes, to have time for himself, but… it felt better when he at least had the option of spending time with others.

He was planning to just wander around town and see if anything interesting happened, only for his thoughts to be interrupted pretty thoroughly.

“Arf!” He looked up in the direction of the bark, and sure enough, there were Ken and Koromaru.

“You found him! Good job!” Ken leaned over to scratch his dog, before looking up again. “Ren-san, would you be willing to come with me? I… There’s something I want to talk with you about. And it’s… really important, to me, that I manage to tell you.” Was he all right? He sounded more nervous than Teddie around rattling boxes.

“You mean you… can’t talk about it here?” Sure, they were in public, but…

“Actually, it’s… I wanted to talk with Naoto-san about it, too, so I had to convince her to meet with me somewhere. It’s better if I do this for both of you at once.”

Ren was pretty sure, at this point, that this insistence was just so that his friend wouldn’t lose his nerve. Which was, admittedly, as good of a reason as any. “I mean, I guess if that makes it easier for you…”

He didn’t have any idea what was going to happen. For a while, now, it had felt like their bond had sort of stalled out, like it couldn’t get any better, except he knew for a fact that it could. He was more than capable of simply counting to ten. Was he just not good enough to figure out what came next?

Ken led out a breath of relief, and started to lead Ren through the town, Koromaru padding alongside them. This… if he was acting like this, it probably was important.

Maybe it’d even cause things to make a bit more sense again.

* * *

  
  


When Ken and Ren arrived at the hill, Naoto was already waiting for them, as if she’d made her way there the very first chance that she got.

“Hello, Naoto-san.” The simple greeting almost got stuck in the back of Ken’s throat, because if the two of them were there… then there really wasn’t any backing out. “Have you been waiting long?”

She shook her head. “I only arrived a few minutes ago.”

“I- all right, then. Okay. So.” Ken sat down on the grass, wondering where he was supposed to start like this. Maybe it would have been better to come up with some sort of plan beforehand, but if he’d thought about it too much… he would have chickened out. “I guess you… both remember back when we were supposed to have that party.” They never had gotten back to the actual celebration part. It had been too late at night for that.

“It… was fairly memorable.” Okay, now they were both as uncomfortable as he was. This probably wasn’t helping things at all.

“Of course it was… And you probably remember what… what my uncle and I were talking about, towards the end.” His hand slipped into his pocket, and closed around a small object. He never had gotten fully out of the habit of carrying around Revival Beads, and it had certainly come in useful several times.

Ren sat down next to him, and Naoto was quick to follow. Koromaru spread out next to them, as if it was just another nice day outside. At the very least, it would probably help to avoid unwanted attention. “We… couldn’t really miss that, either.”

“Right.” Why was this so hard? “I got upset with him because… he doesn’t know how Mom died. And even if he gets a Persona somehow, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to tell him, because… Because he’s too much like me.” Sure, his uncle’s current point of obsession was fairly different, and maybe he was a bit better off, mentally, than a distraught nine-year-old, but what point was there to taking the risk, when everything was already settled?

“Why would that be a problem?” Ren asked, sounding confused.

Naoto, however, remained more calm, like she somehow had everything under control. Despite the fact that, most of the time, none of them had anything under control. “That… I haven’t spent much time thinking about it, but even in such a short time, there were… a lot of conflicting stories.”

And there went his past actions, going on to make things harder for himself. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. “That… there’s a reason for that. The official story isn’t that close to what actually happened, and I… it took me a while to figure out what I wanted to tell people, even- even those who would believe the truth.”

“You said she was killed by a Shadow,” Ren stated. “Or… you let me think that, at least.”

“It’s… not that far from the truth,” He pointed out. “Like… it’s technically not wrong, it just… isn’t the whole thing. Because I don’t like talking about the full thing, except I sort of have to now, because…” Ken paused, and forced himself to breathe. “It’s… a lot easier not to be bothered about things when people already know not to press it.”

“Ken-kun?” He glanced at Naoto. “You’re stalling again.”

“I-I guess I am. Okay. So. The first time I woke up in the Dark Hour, I was nine, and wouldn’t learn anything about Shadows or Personas for another two years.” That was… almost four years ago, now. Time went by so fast… “But SEES- the group my senpai and I belong to- had already gotten started. At that point, it was just Mitsuru-san, Akihiko-san, and Shinjiro-san. Mitsuru-san’s Persona at the time was Penthesilea, Akihiko-san’s was Polydeuces, and Shinjiro-san… he had Castor.”

“At the time?” And of course she’d catch on to that.

“Someone’s Persona can change, if something big happens. Kanji-san says it just happened to him.” He knew he’d probably have to talk about Nemesis eventually, but for now, it would be nice to have them thinking that he’d only ever had Kala-Nemi.

“He did seem a bit different lately…” Ren mused.

“So. Anyway. It was October. Back when I was in third grade. And… you remember how most of you got your Personas?” They nodded. “We didn’t have that. They just handed us Evokers and told us to fire them. Which. Was probably not the best idea, really.” Honestly, they were lucky they hadn’t had to fight anyone’s Shadow from that.

“Probably.” Naoto looked very unimpressed by this. If the people who had been behind the whole thing hadn’t been long gone, Ken would have been entirely willing to give her their addresses and watch the fireworks. “If someone had enough unresolved issues…”

He nodded. “So. They were going out to fight Shadows regularly. It just so happened that they were pretty close to me one night. And… and it turns out that Shinjiro-san had a lot of unresolved issues.” He wasn’t actually sure if they’d ever gotten resolved, but things seemed to be all right now, so he supposed it was fine.

They both blinked at him. Ken couldn’t see any particular emotions, but there was probably a lot of disbelief in there.

“Shinjiro-san?” Ren repeated. “The one who came to visit during Golden Week? That Shinjiro-san?”

Ken simply nodded. “I tried to hate him,” He said. “I told myself that I did enough times that I started to believe it. But… I couldn’t.” So many wasted Revival Beads. So much wasted time. “Even if I could, it wouldn’t have come close to how much he hated himself. And it took him almost dying for me to realize that.”

Koromaru stood up, walked over, and basically collapsed on top of Ken. It helped, a little.

Naoto glanced to the side. “You did say he had been in the hospital.” She sounded a bit curious, maybe. Ken couldn’t tell. He was too focused on continuing to talk, and not crying

“He saved me. He shouldn’t have, I kept telling myself I wanted to kill him, but… he saved me. After… he didn’t wake up for months after. Revival Beads didn’t work, no matter how many times I tried…” He couldn’t keep going past that.

Neither of the others said anything. But they didn’t leave, either.

Ken hugged Koromaru and thought that maybe this was the best he could hope for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will... probably make things a bit easier? Maybe? It could also make them a bit more awkward, but there's already a non-zero chance of Shinji and Dojima spending time in the same room, so a bit of awkwardness was practically guaranteed.


	70. In Which A Vacation Is Prepared For

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken is starting to feel better now, and as a result, he's actually managing to do things again.
> 
> Nanako is ecstatic.

When Ren saw Ken the next day, he appeared to be feeling a lot better. “Thanks for hearing me out yesterday,” He said, quietly. “I- I know it’s a lot to just dump on someone without much warning, but…”

“It’s fine,” He replied, hoping he wasn’t saying it a bit too fast. “It’s… clearly really important to you.” And why wouldn’t it be? Ren wasn’t sure he could have handled anything like what happened to Ken happening to him. “But… you said you couldn’t tell your uncle about it?”

“I want him to like Shinjiro-san. Shinjiro-san is… he’s never done anything but take care of me, and I’m not sure Uncle would realize that, if he learned the truth. I didn’t, until… until it was almost too late.” Somehow, the part about Shinjiro nearly dying was the thing Ken seemed the most upset about. Ren didn’t get it.

Still, he was a Wild Card who got powers from having friends, so he didn’t exactly have reason not to try and understand. “You… care about him a lot, don’t you?” It was strange to think about, but clearly visible every time Ken talked about his senpai. There were plenty of them Ren had yet to meet, and yet the idea that Ken might not have cared about all of them was unthinkable.

He nodded. “After… after everything. Kotone-san helped me to speak to him properly. And we managed to become friends. It’s a lot nicer than when I was trying to be his enemy.”

This was probably just going to be one of those things about Ken that Ren would never fully understand. And he was okay with that.

Still. Maybe it was time to change the subject. “Is… everything with your uncle okay?” In retrospect, this was a pretty terrible change of subject. “You’ve… been out and about a lot.”

Ken gave a noncommittal shrug. “It’s... well, he’s still never around. So it’s hard to say if… if everything’s all right.” Right… it would probably be hard to get along with someone, if they weren’t even there. “I… haven’t been home a lot, either. I probably should, though. Nanako… She must be pretty worried by now.”

It probably said something that Ken was mostly worried about what Nanako would think. Even if the two of them did get along a lot better than they did with their guardian. “It sounds more like you’re worried about her.”

“I… guess I am, a little. She keeps telling me to spend time with my friends, and that she’ll be fine on her own, but…” He trailed off, before shaking his head. “I know I don’t like being alone like that. She shouldn’t have to be.”

“It’s a good thing she has you, then, isn’t it?” Really, Ren liked Nanako. She was adorable.

“Yeah, but I- I don’t know if I want to stay in Inaba.”

“...Ken-senpai?” This was… it was a new thing. It wasn’t entirely surprising, thinking about it, but it still wasn’t something that Ren had ever expected to hear.

“I- I mean, I don’t want you all to have to deal with things here by yourself, it’s just… I don’t really feel like I belong here. Sure, I get to stay in the same place all the time, and I got to meet all of you, but…” He just let himself trail off again.

Ren looked up at him. “I’m glad you came to Inaba. Even if you don’t really like it here. We’d never have gotten this far without you.” He didn’t even think he was exaggerating all that much.

“...Thanks.” For some reason, whatever kept the two of them from becoming closer had apparently faded away, because Ren could feel their bond getting stronger yet again. He had no idea what he’d even done for that to happen, or if he’d done anything at all.

Maybe his own powers just weren’t something he was meant to understand.

* * *

  
  


Ren had been right, when he said there wasn’t much for kids their age to do in Inaba. Ken spent so much time busy with the TV and the garden that he didn’t have that much time to think about it, but it turned out there was a reason Nanako spent all her time in front of the television.

So desperate was she for some sort of human interaction, his mentioning of future plans was more than enough to catch her interest. “Your friends are coming back!?” She sounded a lot more excited than anyone would have expected.

“That’s- well, Mitsuru-san’s not going to be here. She’s too busy. But Aigis-san will be here instead, and she’s…” Was there any good way to describe Aigis? She was getting better at not immediately alerting people to how she was a robot, but a small portion of her graduating class has still managed to figure it out. “...Dedicated.”

“Dedicated?” Nanako just sounded confused, which was fair. This hadn’t been his best description.

“She… well, there’s two of us she really cares about- Minato-san and Kotone-san. She used to be really insistent about it, but she’s been learning to back off, so now she just spends a lot of time calling them to make sure they’re all right.” Maybe one day, she’d learn how to leave them alone completely, but that was clearly going to take more time. “When she decides on something, she… doesn’t change her mind easily. And she decided that the most important thing she could do was keep people safe. She just mostly focuses on those two.”

Now all that was left was to wait for her to turn up and hope Nanako didn’t realize he was friends with a robot. That would lead to… a lot of questions, probably.

Nanako nodded along. “She sounds nice.”

“She is, most of the time. She’s just… stubborn, sometimes.” This was one of those things where it would probably be better not to get into details. “If you’re ever in trouble, you can always ask her for help.”

“So… she’s sort of like you, then?” Ken looked at her in confusion. “Teddie says that you like helping people, too, and… You haven’t changed much, since you got here.”

He didn’t know how she could be so sure of that. Spending time around this house wasn’t exactly his biggest priority. But the helping people thing, at least, he couldn’t easily deny. “Well… I guess that’s because I already did a lot of growing up when I was eleven. It doesn’t have to happen all at once.” If only he could convince more people that he was grown up enough to handle the things that only Persona Users were really able to handle.

It seemed that Nanako was satisfied by this. “You’ll introduce me to her, right, Big Bro?”

“Y-yeah. Okay.” He’d been planning to do so, anyway, but it was nice to know that she was interested in meeting more of his friends.

At least that made someone who’d definitely be interested. Actually, that reminded him of something…

“By the way, Nanako, you remember Shinjiro-san?” She nodded. “When he and the others get here, it’ll have been a few days since his birthday. Do you want to help me go pick something out for him?”

“Do we get to go to Junes?” This was, of course, a completely predictable response.

“Why not?” He guessed they were going to Junes.

* * *

  
  


Nanako took to shopping like a fish to water.

Ken supposed he shouldn't have been overly surprised- someone had to get groceries, after all, and that probably wasn’t going to be his uncle- but it was still interesting, to see someone who was so tiny ducking through the isles like she lived there.

“So, we want to get Shinjiro-san something he’ll like, right?” She checked, as if Ken would want it any other way.

He nodded. “A new cookbook might work, he’s… well, I’ve said he’s a good cook, right? And you remember the dinner he made for us.” It was some of the best food he’d eaten since arriving in Inaba, but given the sort of food he usually had access to, that wasn’t saying much.

“It was really good,” She agreed. “Do you think he’d make something for us again?”

If he asked? Probably. Despite everything, Shinjiro still had a hard time turning Ken down. He tried not to abuse this too much, however. “I mean, we could ask, but… everyone’s going to be here for a vacation. We can’t just… make them do things for us.”

Did that mean he was going to stop Nanako and Koromaru from giving it their best effort? Of course not.

“I guess not…” Nanako glanced at the floor tiles, before looking up again. “Is there anything else that he likes?”

It took him a moment to think about it. “Um… He likes animals, but I’m not sure that’s going to help us right now… maybe a game he could play with Akihiko-san and Kotone-san? Or we could get him a new coat or something, he’s not great with winter… He’s a lot like Akihiko-san like that.” There really were a lot of options, when he took the time to consider them.

“So… we should get him a game, a scarf, or something for cooking?” When she put it like that, it sounded a lot simpler. “I dunno how much money you have…”

“That shouldn’t be a problem,” He commented, because money wasn’t really that much of an issue when just killing one golden hand got him so much of it. “Come on, let’s go pick out something nice…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, the dates when things happen just line up really nicely together. (And then there's Naoto's dungeon deadline being the fifth of October. I guess pushing it up a day would be cruel for more reasons than one... You can have Kasumire get her Persona on the fourth, though!)


	71. In Which Preparations Are Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a rainy day, and preparations are already being made for the rest of the break. Some enjoy this a bit more than others.

It would probably come as no surprise for most to hear that Shinjiro had genuinely not expected to make it to adulthood. It was sort of surreal, to have gotten there, and the realization of such left him stunned, even a year after he’d been dragged into making fewer poor decisions.

He was pretty sure that admitting this out loud would be a one-way ticket to the bottom of a cuddle pile- though, admittedly, there were far worse fates- so he decided to just put the strangeness of it out of his mind. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of things to distract himself with, particularly with the trip he’d be taking to Inaba in just a few days.

“Do you think I’ll need to bring this with me?” Koto asked, twirling her Evoker in her hand.

This was probably not the least stressful distraction he had chosen, but he’d never claim that he’d stopped making poor choices entirely. “I mean, Ken says he doesn’t need his, but it’s not like he’s ever said how that happened. I’d be more worried about figuring out how you’re supposed to see things.”

“Ken-kun says that the glasses Teddie makes are good for seeing through the fog. And even if we can’t get some… I can probably burn it away.” She sounded pretty sure of this, despite how, last time they were in Inaba, she hadn’t even made the attempt. “Also, I don’t need to see things to Megidolaon.”

This was probably a sign that Koto was spending too much time with the crazy people in blue. That, or the jobs she did sometimes for Mitsuru were on a much larger scale than she ever told him about. Whichever one it was, he didn’t think he wanted to know.

“I’m not gonna tell you how to fight things, but maybe that shouldn’t be your first resort.” He was positive that, one day, she was going to blow up something important. Assuming Aki didn’t get there first. That was also a possibility.

“It averages at less collateral damage than Maragidyne,” Aki pointed out, plopping a bag of luggage down next to the couch. “...Somehow.”

Oh, good. He wasn’t the only one who was sort of confused by this. “Is that because of the spell, or because Koto just likes setting things on fire?”

There was visible silence. Perhaps it was time to wonder if the three of them maybe knew each other a bit too well.

“...Also, Aki, if that's the reasoning you’re going to use, I’m going to have to ask where Maziodyne is on the list.” It was a good thing they were bringing Aigis… those two would probably manage to get themselves killed, otherwise.

Aki completely refused to answer his question. That could probably be considered an answer in itself.

* * *

  
  


Most of Ren’s friends were people that, by now, he understood fairly well. Sure, Rise and Naoto were still new to the group, and Ken still had his secrets, and of course Teddie was never going to be fully explainable, but he still had some sort of idea of who they were.

Even Lavenza, whose Social Link so far seemed to consist entirely of ‘fuse X Persona’ or ‘Get me a lemonade,’ still seemed like a full person with her own wants, no matter how much she insisted that she was purely dedicated to seeing him succeed.

“I-I’m not sure what getting you drinks has to do with that, though…” He pointed out.

“My siblings say that their Guests did this sort of thing all the time, during their Journeys, and the two of them ended up becoming something…” She paused, as though searching for the correct word. “Well… you might call them superhuman, but it’s still something more than that.”

Kotone and Minato? Superhuman? While it did explain how they had a certain… force of personality, they still seemed almost normal. “I-I don’t think that’s from fetching drinks.”

“Maybe not, but what do you have to lose by seizing the opportunity?” Well, his sanity, for one, but Ren got the feeling Lavenza wouldn’t like it if he gave her that answer.

“My money,” He pointed out. “Not that the Persona stuff is cheap, either…”

She gave him a sympathetic smile. “I’m afraid that everything has a price- the ability to find the truth especially. If enlightenment were an easy thing to obtain, there would be a great deal more Persona Users.”

“I woudn’t call us enlightened…” And not just because he brought darkness with him everywhere he went. “We don’t even know what we’re doing, most of the time.” Even Ken found a lot of this stuff confusing, and he’d had a Persona for years. What hope did he have?

“Self-awareness is another rare quality.” He wasn’t sure, but he thought she might have been teasing him. “Though, it’s also possible to be too self-conscious. You may want to be careful of that.” He had no idea what she was talking about.

“Yeah, you worry about stuff all the time,” Marie added. “I’d try and get you to stop, go to the river, but…” Despite being on another plane of existence altogether, the rain still crashed against the roof and lashed at the windows of the train car, which did not let such things as inclement weather force it to stall in its journey. It was more of an explanation than Ren needed.

“Right… You can’t go out today.” Then again, most people didn’t like being outside on rainy days, so it wasn’t like she was missing out on all that much. “Still… I looked at the weather report, and it’s going to be sunny through… just about the whole rest of the break. Maybe you could spend time with us then- there’s probably going to be fireworks!”

“Fireworks…” Marie repeated the word out loud, as though she had never heard them before. “That… I don’t know. Maybe.”

“You should think about it. We could even try and do something about your memories.” Besides, if Ken was going to have his Persona-wielding friends around, Ren figured he might as well have one of his companions from the Velvet Room with him, and Lavenza didn’t seem to have any interest in going outside at the moment.

Not that he was certain she’d tell him if that changed, but he had to start trusting her somewhere, didn’t he?

“That might be good for you,” Lavenza opined. “The things Elizabeth says when she comes back from there… it’s sort of like one of your poems.”

“I keep telling you, they’re not poems! Stop looking at my stuff!”

Igor just watched these proceedings without saying anything. Sometimes, Ren wondered if he didn’t have the right idea.

* * *

  
  


Ken sensed Adachi’s presence before he really saw him, Kala-Nemi sparking in irritation as soon as his uncle’s partner was nearby. “Ken-chan, I thought I saw you here with Nanako-chan just the other day.”

“I was gift shopping then,” He explained, wondering why he was bothering to justify himself to someone who continually rubbed him the wrong way. “And now I’m getting groceries.”

“You can say you’re bored, you know. There really is nothing to do in this town. I’ve told you about my first job here, right?”

“Yes. It was a cat stuck in a tree.” Maybe it was a bad idea to let him know he’d been paying attention to the things that came out of his mouth. “You know, Uncle’s not going to be very happy to hear you’ve been slacking off here again.”

“I mean, it’s not like you have to tell him about it, or anything…” Ken wondered if Adachi could even see how pathetic he was being right now. “Besides, just look at the weather outside!”

Ken didn’t need to look outside to know what the weather was like, because he’d just come inside and had his clothes plastered to himself from the rain being blown right at him by the wind. That was sort of required in order to walk anywhere. Even if it hadn’t been, the weather report was one of those things he watched regularly in the hopes of being able to make sure that nobody died. He knew it was raining.

“Maybe try getting an umbrella?” He suggested. “Sure, it’s still windy, but it can block some of the water.”

“Or, I could stay in this store, and be nice and dry.”

Ken could see one large, gaping hole in his logic. “Adachi-san… it’s going to be raining all through tomorrow. You have to go home eventually. This isn’t even the worst storm there could be.”

“Yeah, but… hey, remember that typhoon that hit Iwatodai a couple years ago?”

If Ken was being honest? Not really. Most of what he’d retained from those days was that the Wild Cards in the dormitory had both been really sick, Kotone more so than Minato. Thinking about that sort of made him sad, even if he didn’t know why.

But admitting that out loud… it didn’t feel right, either. “Well, if you remember a storm like that, I’m not sure why you’re worried about normal rain.”

Maybe he was being a bit mean. But he wasn’t sure what else he was supposed to do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aki has probably caused at least one city block to lose power before. It seems like something he would do.
> 
> Besides having some of SEES around, summer break means the opportunity to give minor characters a bit more focus. The only question remaining is whether or not that will be successful when I'm already juggling Early Recruit Naoto.
> 
> Ken is totally doing the Jester Social Link offscreen. He is not thrilled by this, particularly when he doesn't even get cool Personas from it.


	72. In Which Vacation Properly Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akihiko, Shinjiro, and Kotone return to Inaba, this time bringing Aigis with them.

As soon as the fog cleared, Ken took Koromaru for a walk. His uncle had already left for the day, so he didn’t have to explain where he was going, but he would have liked to maybe introduce him to some of the people who had somehow managed to take care of him despite still being teenagers themselves.

Maybe it would have even taught him something. That would be nice.

There was a still a while to go before the others arrived, of course, but that just meant wandering the town, letting Koromaru sniff at plants and stray cats, and enjoying a nice morning before things heated up again.

“So, what do you think we should do with the others while they’re here?” He asked. Sure, he couldn’t understand Koromaru, but at least he knew that he’d be listened to.

Koromaru glanced at a nearby store. “Arf!”

“I don’t think they let dogs inside…” Really, that was the biggest problem Ken could think of. Even getting to the beach would be as simple as catching a bus, the only question was their policy on pets. Of course, that had been a problem when it came to arranging SEES events just about forever, so at least there weren’t any issues he wasn’t used to.

Koromaru whined, his ears drooping. Ken glanced at him.

“...Are you trying to get me to feel bad so I’ll ask Shinjiro-san to make something for you?” He didn’t get any sort of answer. Not even a bark. “It’s not like he can resist giving you what you want…” No one could, really, but Shinjiro had the most things a dog could want- the ability to cook steak and an appreciation for fluffy animals.

Koromaru stopped participating in the ‘conversation’ altogether and started sniffing at someone’s garden. “Please don’t dig up the neighbors’ gardens, we don’t need people mad at us…”

Still, compared to a lot of other things Ken had to be worried about… it was nice for one of his potential problems to be something mundane. Not everything had to be death and destruction.

Even if he was sure that Aigis would end up inflicting something like that on part of the TV World. Those poor Shadows…

* * *

  
  


“So this is Yasoinaba?” The first thing Aigis did as soon as she stepped into the station was to start looking around. “It is very different from Iwatodai.”

“It’s nice and peaceful, isn’t it?” Koto agreed. “I mean, it’s a bit too quiet for me, but I can see why people like it.” She definitely had a point. Shinjiro could easily see himself moving there, if not for the fact that almost everyone he cared about still lived in Iwatodai.

“Arf!” This was exactly all of the warning they got before they had a dog in front of them begging for attention.

“Koromaru! Wait up!” Ken followed soon after, somewhat out of breath but still carrying just as much excitement to him as Koromaru did.

Aigis’ gaze immediately locked on him. “Ken-san. It is good to see you again.”

“It’s nice to see you, too.”

“No Nanako today?” Aki asked, glancing around as if the sweet little girl was bound to pop out from behind a random corner.

As if in answer, Ken glanced at Aigis. “I… wasn’t sure if that would be a good idea.” It was hard to be surprised by this. Even though Aigis generally made sure to at least wear the right kind of clothes to cover up the fact that she wasn’t human, this usually meant winter clothing, and in mid-August, that tended to mean lots of odd looks.

Shinjiro knew that for a fact. He’d been getting those looks for years.

“You think she’d ask a lot of questions?”

Ken shrugged. “I don’t know. But she gets excited easily, so if she found something out, she’d tell everyone about it. I don’t think it’ll be that big of a problem, but… It feels risky.”

“Arf!” Koromaru padded up to Shinjiro and looked at him with wide eyes.

“I don’t have any treats for you.” And thus began the whining.

It’d probably sound strange to anyone who heard him say it… but he’d missed this.

* * *

  
  


Today, Teddie had experienced, for the very first time, fog in the human world that didn’t involve death. He was somewhat aware that this really shouldn’t have been a milestone, but there it was, and he was happy for it, even if he didn’t see the fog the same way most people did.

“Kanji, I want Topsicles!” He declared. It was currently what the humans called summer, and that meant it was beary hot outside.

“You can go on your own, can’t you? You’ve got money.”

This was true. All of the coins, and bills, and assorted sellable objects that could be found in Teddie’s world were as available to him as they were to anyone else, and he could easily go out with full pockets in search of something to buy, as long as he managed to figure out the fine art of purchasing things.

But doing things alone just wasn’t the same as when he was with others.

Still… It was a bright, sunny day, and Teddie couldn't think of a single reason that he’d rather stay indoors, when he could enjoy a world without fog or the threat of being attacked by random Hableries just because he happened to be taking a nap in their favorite spot.

It even turned out that his fate wouldn’t be loneliness after all, as he soon noticed people that he recognized outside as well. “Kenny! Koro-chan!”

“Hey, Teddie!” Kenny waved him over, and Teddie was more than happy to run up to him. “Some of my senpai have come to visit- I did tell you they’d be here, right?”

He might have, but if that was the case, Teddie hadn’t really been paying attention. Still, it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to come out and say that.

“I see! So here’s Akky, Gakky, Koto-chan, and… um… who’s this?” Something about the girl who was with them just didn’t feel right. And even if his nose wasn’t as good as it used to be, he still knew that humans didn’t smell like metal.

“My name is Aigis,” The girl stated, in a mostly even tone. “You are one of Ken-san’s friends?”

“That’s right! I’m Teddie! It’s nice to meet you, Ai-chan!” Was this the time to ask her why she smelled weird, or was that a thing that tended to make people upset? He had trouble remembering sometimes… “Why are you…?” There was really no good way to put this.

“...That’s right, I never told you about her,” Kenny realized. “Aigis is a robot who was made to fight Shadows. Because of this, she’s able to use a Persona.”

A robot? Like the ones on TV? “Huh… She looks really human.”

“So do you.” Despite everything, Teddie still found himself flinching away from those words. “It seems we have both moved away from our origins.”

“It’s probably a good thing you’re meeting each other now, and not two years ago…” Koto-chan sighed. “Now that you’re both more human than you started as, maybe you can treat each other as just… other people.”

That sounded nice. If a little odd.

Ai-chan nodded. “It’s not quite the same as having others who are like me, but… I suppose it may be worth the effort.” Did that mean she wanted to be his friend? Maybe?

Kenny sighed. “Just remember not to mention where the two of you come from in public…”

* * *

  
  


When Ken left the house that morning, he hadn’t expected that he’d end up accompanying Teddie to get ice cream. In hindsight, though, he wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Teddie loved being outside, he liked ice cream, and he’d eat as much as he possibly could, because for Teddie, brain freeze was something that happened to other people.

“So that’s what Mitsuru would look like if she were less…” Akihiko trailed off, apparently unable to find the correct word. Ken could think of a few options, but none that really stood out.

“I can’t imagine it…” Shinjiro sighed. “If she were like that… she just wouldn’t be Mitsuru.”

Kotone, being a Wild Card, was also swallowing more ice cream than recommended, because with her Persona of choice, brain freeze was a thing that happened to other people. Despite probably being outright immune to ice at the moment, however, her eating was still at a much more sedate pace than Teddie.

“Mitsuru-san’s sense of decorum is one of her more defining traits,” Aigis agreed. “Even casual outfits appear to be… not within her capabilities.”

“That’s one way to put it…” It was the biggest reason that Ken absolutely did not want the entirety of SEES in Inaba at once. None of them could do subtle. “I guess she hasn’t gotten any better about that?”

“It’s hard to tell, because right now she’s really busy with… something.” Well, that was decidedly unhelpful. “So I haven’t seen her a lot… not that I do to begin with, but…”

“I think she might be chasing off another suitor?” Akihiko suggested. “Wouldn’t be the first time… Hopefully this one doesn’t end in a restraining order.”

Ken decided that, for the moment, he had probably heard enough about what was happening in Iwatodai.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the best thing Ken can hope for is that, by the time Arena comes around, everyone has gotten used to these strange people randomly turning up now and again.
> 
> He's probably not going to be that lucky. But at least this time Aki's probably going to have a shirt.


	73. In Which A Gift Is Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken has something to give Shinjiro, and with everyone else off exploring the TV World, he finally has the relative privacy he needs to give it!
> 
> Teddie learns something new.

It came as absolutely no surprise that Aigis wanted to see the inside of the TV. Naturally, Teddie had to go along to make sure she didn’t get stuck, and Kotone and Akihiko would never turn down the chance for an adventure once it presented itself.

This meant, of course, that they’d had to leave Ken and Shinjiro together, but Ken didn’t really mind that all too much. Actually, he’d been sort of hoping for it- it made his more immediate plans less of a big deal.

“My uncle shouldn’t be home right now,” He stated, leading Shinjiro to the house. “And Nanako was excited to hear you’d be visiting again, so…” He let the door swing open. “I’m back!”

“Oh! Welcome home, Big Bro!” Nanako stood up, a wide grin on her face. “And Shinjiro-san, too!” She paused, and glanced at Ken. “...Did you give it to him already?”

He shook his head. “It’s… still in my room, actually. Do you want to go get it, or should I do it?”

“You should do it,” She declared, looking at him with brown eyes that said things would play out exactly the way that she desired it, because she was too cute for it to be otherwise.

He still couldn’t argue with that look. “A- all right, then.” He hurried back to his room, and, more importantly, to the box that he’d left on the table. All he had to do was scoop it up, and then return downstairs to where the others were waiting for him, and also enjoying Koromaru’s fur.

“Here you go, Shinjiro-san.” He handed the box over. “I know it’s a couple days late, but… it’d feel weird mailing something to someone who was about to visit either way.”

Shinjiro took the box, turning it over in his hands for a bit before opening it. Inside, there was a soft scarf wrapped around a cookbook like a ribbon.

“Y-You really didn’t have to get me anything...”

“Yeah, but I wanted to. You’ve done so much for me… besides, you seem so cold all the time. You need warmer clothes.” Sure, it probably wouldn’t fix everything, but at least it’d be something.

It would make Ken feel better, too. He hated seeing friends upset.

“Besides, you’re nice,” Nanako added, as if that was all that really mattered. “So the two of us should do nice things for you.” If only life could be that simple…

Shinjiro glanced at Ken. “Where’s she learning this stuff?”

“I have no idea. But it’s nice, isn’t it?” It was a kind of thought that not enough people seemed to believe in, but he thought he would have liked a world like that. “And it… really does make me feel better. To be able to give you things like this.”

“...Kid, you know you don’t owe me anything.” Of course not. Things between them had been even for a very long time. It was just the right thing to do.

“I know that. But if you’re going to keep sending me things, I’m allowed to return the favor.” He sat down next to the table. “...So, what’s on TV right now?”

* * *

  
  


Inside of the TV, a quartet of Persona Users were wandering in search of Shadows. This would probably have been easier if none of them were working with impaired senses, but Teddie simply hadn’t had time to prepare glasses for Akky and Koto-chan, and he wasn’t even sure where to start with Ai-chan. Somehow, he didn’t think normal glasses were going to work.

Maybe goggles, but… those were much harder to make look good. This was going to require a lot more delibearation…

Either way, despite this visual impairment, they were making their way through this world well enough, helped by the fact that, just after the fog returned, the Shadows were mostly resting from expending all of their energy the night before.

“You know, this doesn’t really feel fair…” Koto-chan commented as Ai-chan shot a resting Raven Shadow from a distance. “How do you even aim like that?”

“I have built-in sensors for detecting Shadows,” Ai-chan responded. “While you were eating your ice cream, I was manually adjusting them to ignore Teddie-san’s presence. His many unique factors made this a very simple task.”

“Huh?” Teddie blinked. “What do you mean?” Sure, he had his human body, and Kintoki-Douji, but was he really that different?

“You are a Persona User,” She stated. “And you are of the Star Arcana. This second one, in particular, is a unique feature among Shadows. Before today, I didn’t believe any Shadows existed beyond the thirteenth Arcana.”

“I could have told you…” Koto-chan mumbled. “I mean, he definitely wasn’t going to be an Emperor…”

Teddie was now completely lost. “Arcana? Star?” Sure, he heard Rise-chan talking about that sort of thing once or twice, and Ren-san a bit more often, but nobody had ever explained to him what any of it meant. Which was totally unfair! Just because he was a Shadow didn’t mean he knew everything about them!

“It’s, um… some sort of classification system?” Akky offered. “Like, Caesar’s an Emperor, Kotone’s a Fool… or, she was, I don’t know if that’s changed, or…”

“It’s complicated,” Koto-chan agreed. “Especially since some people have two Arcanas, even if they’ll probably only know about the one unless there’s a Wild Card willing to tell them… It’s mostly just a curiosity, though, if you’re not a Wild Card.”

This also didn’t make much sense, since Teddie had no idea why being a Wild Card would matter for Arcana being important or not. “And… my Arcana’s the Star?” That did sound right, now that he’d said it out loud, but he’d never bothered to think about this sort of thing before.

Ai-chan nodded. “All of the other Shadows I have met were of the first thirteen Arcanas, not counting Fool, and only the very strongest were classified under Death. You are an… anomaly in that regard.” This would be a lot easier to understand if he knew what the word anomaly meant.

“I-I see…” He’d always wanted to be something more than just another Shadow, but… it’d have been better if he had any idea what that meant. As it was, he was just… different. “And... and that’s a good thing, right?”

He just got shrugs in return. This wasn’t helping him to figure things out one bit.

* * *

  
  


Ryotaro was sort of used to seeing the children relaxing in the garden, on those rare days when he made it home at a reasonable hour. Sometimes they’d have a friend or two with them, though when that was the case, said friend was normally about to go home as well.

Today, however, there was a small crowd of people he didn’t recognize, two of which were wearing heavy coats in the middle of August.

“Hi, Dad!” Nanako separated herself from the crowd, holding a large tomato in her hands. “Some of Big Bro’s friends from the city are visiting!”

“I… see that.” He’d never looked too deeply into what Ken’s circumstances prior to moving to Inaba had been, other than that the Kirijo Group had been involved, but the clear youth of these people was… concerning. One of them didn’t even look like she was out of high school!

“So, you’re Ken-kun’s uncle?” The older-looking girl, the one actually properly dressed for summer, peered at him through eyes as red as the strawberries in her hands, with an expression as irritatingly unreadable as that of the boy who’d found Morooka’s body. “I’m Shiomi Kotone. My friends and I were helping to take care of Ken-kun all throughout last year, and most of the year before that. It’s good to meet you.” Despite the warm words, her tone was frosty.

Ken sighed. “Please don’t… try and copy Mitsuru-san too much.”

“Yeah, Koto. Keep this up and you’re going to scare the kids,” The man who was dressed for winter agreed. “Don’t want to do that, do you?”

Shiomi glanced at Ken and Nanako. Nanako seemed perturbed, but Ken looked as if this were something that happened every day. “Don’t worry, Kotone-san,” He spoke up. “We know that you’d never hurt us. Just… maybe not in the garden?”

“I don’t take it that far…” She grumbled. “Mostly.”

“It’s the mostly part that worries us,” The overly-bundled up man agreed, before turning to face Ryotaro himself. “Aragaki Shinjiro. I’d say I helped out with the kid, but…”

“It’s not your fault,” The younger girl stated, in an almost monotonous voice. “You were in the hospital for much of the time Ken-san was with us. And when you were discharged, you put in just as much effort as the rest of us.” There was probably a story here.

“Yeah, you can’t exactly say you didn’t help,” The last member of the group agreed. “I mean, especially with…” He paused, looked at Ryotaro and Nanako, and then said nothing more.

“You’ve done a lot,” Ken agreed. “And you shouldn’t say that it doesn’t matter. Because you’ve done a lot more for me than some of the people who were actually supposed to look after me.”

He didn’t look at Ryotaro at all. Somehow, this wasn’t particularly relieving.

“I mean, none of us have very high standards for that…” Okay, so maybe not looking too deeply into the situation in Iwatodai had been a mistake after all. Especially since it felt like it was a bit late to ask about that now, even if this was the first time that people other than his nephew who had been involved in that were present.

He also never got an explanation for why half of them were wearing winter clothing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When you think about it, I'm not sure there's a single rule about Shadows that Teddie hasn't broken in some way or another. Even his Shadow is the Moon Arcana, which comes one after the Star.
> 
> I'm hoping I can get Dojima to show up a bit more, if only so I can work towards getting him and Shinji to Peak Awkward.


	74. In Which SEES Doesn't Actually Do That Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out, in a small town like Inaba, it's very easy to get bored over a summer break.

Kubo, befitting his nature, had immediately confessed to everything the second they managed to get him to stand trial. Naoto would have been relieved by this if she didn’t realize that a good portion of it was just a plea for attention.

For everyone else, of course, the suspect’s questionable mental health was just a curiosity. Some people might have brought it up as a topic of conversation, but for all they knew, this whole business of murders was over and done with.

Naoto sort of wished it could have been that simple, but she had Sukuna-Hikona buzzing in her ear, telling her that it likely wasn’t over yet, and she needed to be prepared.

It would have been a lot simpler if she knew what sort of preparations needed to be done, but apparently that would have been too easy. And, of course, it was hard to get much information from anyone at the station, because they just saw her as a nosy kid.

So. No progress on that front.

“Naoto-kun, do you have any plans for the rest of the summer?” Yukiko asked.

She shook her head. “If our theories about Kubo are correct… the only way to know for sure will be to observe this town. I suppose the easiest way to start on that would be to enroll in Yasogami High for the fall semester, but…” There was still a month to go until then, justifications to give for why she hadn’t wandered out of Inaba after another case… All sorts of things.

“There really isn’t much, aside from the festival in a week,” Yukiko agreed. “But Ken-kun said his senpai were here for a bit so maybe they have some ideas.”

“They are?” Naoto hadn’t heard about that, but she didn’t spend as much time with the others as she could have, particularly when there was still some official stuff that needed to be worked out.

“Well, some of them are. Sanada-san, Aragaki-san, and Shiomi-san have all come to visit before, but their friend Aigis has also come along this time. I haven’t had a chance to meet her yet, but apparently she’s a robot?”

Naoto wondered if she would ever hear anything about Ken’s life that wouldn’t just bring up more questions. “A… robot? Really?” Maybe it would be worth meeting the various members of SEES while they were around… At the very least, they couldn’t have been weirder company than the one with blue hair.

“Well. That’s just what I’ve heard. But Ken-kun doesn’t really have a reason to lie to us, does he?” That… seemed like a good enough point, even if their most experienced member had a very colored past that he wasn’t saying much about.

“I suppose I could pay them a visit, then.” Even though what little she’d heard about SEES was all incredibly concerning… robots were cool. There was simply no way around it.

* * *

  
  


While Ren had been slowly learning the ropes of fishing, and was starting to actually get results sometimes, Marie was… less fortunate. “I just don’t get it,” She complained. “Why won’t they just bite?”

“This is… a thing for people that are really patient, I think,” He explained. “Sometimes I bring a book with me, but I have to be careful to figure out when something’s on the line.” It wouldn’t do any good to get a bite, only for the fish to make off with his bait. He only had so many worms.

Marie nodded along, twirling a bit of fishing line with her fingers. Ren assumed she knew enough not to tangle herself up in it. “This is boring. But it’s still better than being in that train car all the time. There’s nothing to do there, either.”

It was true that Igor didn’t seem all that invested in providing entertainment for his assistants. “Is that why you keep writing those poems?”

“They’re not poems. They’re the screams of my pathos.”

Ren wasn’t entirely sure there was a difference between those things. “Well… whatever they are. Is that why you write them? Because there’s nothing else to do?”

Marie scoffed. “Of course not. I write them because there’s something that I need to get out. There’s nothing else about it.”

Well… he had to admit that it was probably a less dangerous method of dealing with her feelings than if she were to have a Shadow of her own show up. “Maybe you could write while fishing?” He suggested. “I mean, I… guess you wouldn’t have much to be inspired about…”

At the very least, he didn’t think that what came out the other end would be poetry so much as complaining about the fish having a working sense of self-preservation and not wanting to bite the hook. Which was a perfectly reasonable reaction from them, to be entirely honest.

She shook her head. “...I want to go to the festival. It’s pretty soon, isn’t it?”

“Right. It’ll be this upcoming weekend.” He was already hoping to invite the rest of the team to it. It’d be better than previous years, when he’d been on his own because his parents couldn’t be bothered anymore. “It’ll go pretty late, though. Are you sure you’ll be allowed?”

“It won’t rain, then.” Was that seriously the only consideration for whether or not she was allowed to go outside? Ren was sort of jealous… Even if he thought it was better to be out in the rain than at night.

* * *

  
  


Today, Teddie was learning from Kanji how to stitch together little doll clothes. It was a lot more difficult than knitting- the needle and thread were both beary tiny- and his effort were all misshapen in various ways, but he thought he was starting to get the hang of it.

At the very least, the fact that he was no longer pricking himself on the needles was definitely progress of some kind, and that was good. There were beary few dolls with outfits that could be improved with bloodstains.

“I mean, maybe if you wanted ‘em to look creepy…” Kanji had said, “But we have dyes for that.”

Teddie had listened attentively, and as a result, was making things that were clean, if still not the right shape to fit on a doll just yet. “Maybe we should start you off a bit bigger…” Kanji mused. “Might go better if you’re trying to fit it to an actual person.”

“Wouldn’t that use lots of fabric, though?” He pointed out. He didn’t want to waste too many materials, or anything. “I can do the small stuff, I promise!”

There was the sound of footsteps coming up to them. “I see I have found the right place.”

“Oh, hi, Ai-chan!” Teddie stood up. “Where’s your friends?”

“Akihiko-san has started an impromptu self-defense seminar by the Samegawa riverbank. Kotone-san and Shinjiro-san are making sure he doesn’t throw anyone into the river.” He didn’t know these people all that well, but he could certainly believe that was what they were doing.

“Really?” It was Kanji’s turn to look interested, now. “What sort of things is he teaching?”

“Given that it is Akihiko-san… it is probably some form of punching.” Yes, this made sense. It wasn’t like he could go around teaching people how to throw lightning at people. The world would be a much more dangerous place for Teddie if that were the case. “I was actually here to discuss something else.”

“What is it?” There weren’t that many reasons for someone to want to talk to him, were there?

“Ken-san has told us that you wish to enroll in his and Ren-san’s middle school for the next semester. As this sort of thing usually requires a surname, Mitsuru-san has asked us to ask if you have any preference. We’ve simply been… getting a bit off track.”

A surname… “That’s… a family thing, isn’t it?” Humans had so many rules and stuff that it was easy to get them all mixed up.

“That is how it is usually considered,” She agreed. “To some people, it can also hold a sense of obligation. It’s a choice that most don’t get to make.”

Kanji sighed. “It’s not usually that big of a deal, trust me. Long as you don’t share a name with anyone important, nobody’s gonna think twice about it.” That was good to know, except that it didn’t help that much, because he didn’t know who was and wasn’t important!

Not that he hadn’t already had some sort of idea of what he wanted, but… how was he supposed to say it? Television had not provided any sort of answers to this dilemma!

“Um… well…” In his thinking, he almost pricked himself on his sewing needle again. “If I had the same name as someone else, that’d… make us family, right?”

“Not necessarily… There are a large number of families carrying the surname ‘Sakura,’ or ‘Yuki.’ Those names are what you would call generic.”

Teddie nodded along, though he wasn’t entirely sure he got it. “I… There’s a lot of options, aren’t there?”

“Don’t worry about it too much,” Kanji advised him. “You can’t think of anything… Ma’s already saying she’s got two kids now.”

“R-really!?” Had the world just… decided to give him everything he wanted, all at once? “I-is it really okay if I-?”

“It’ll be fine, I promise.” He paused. “...You’re not even gonna bother thinking of anything else, are you?”

“Nope!”

"Should have figured..."

Ai-chan watched this go on without blinking. “...Well… I suppose that’s settled, then.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The seminar Aki accidentally started may or may not have ended with Chie throwing him into the river.
> 
> This is another one of those times where I wonder, in canon, what exactly Yosuke told his parents the first time he brought Teddie home with him.


	75. In Which Unrealistic Budgeting Is Noticed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kotone's spending habits could maybe use a bit of adjustment. Just a little.
> 
> Oh, and Naoto does some stuff, too.

As it turned out, a bunch of teenagers coming in from out of town with large amounts of money in their pockets was the sort of thing that tended to attract attention, particularly in a town as small as Inaba.

“Saved up a lot from part-time jobs, have you?”

“Something like that,” Koto agreed, her voice strained. This was the third time she’d been asked that question since coming to Inaba, at least that Shinjiro had been present for. Given how short a time they’d been there for, this probably meant they needed to rethink their budget a little.

Once they managed to get away with their food- which honestly was a little pricey even with Aki and Koto’s shared love for monster hunts- Koto sighed and turned to Shinjiro. “Next time, you can handle the money.”

“Somehow, I doubt that my five days of being a legal adult are going to help our situation any.” Also, if he let that be used as a justification for things, Aki was going to spend the entire next month bugging him. Which was not an arrangement that interested him in the slightest.

“I guess not…” She deflated. “Still, if we ever have to go back to the same place… maybe it’d help if it wasn’t the same person every time?”

Personally, Shinjiro was pretty sure by now that the Kirijo Group’s known wealth was the only thing that had kept SEES’ usual purchases from setting off several warning flags, and as it was, he wouldn’t have been surprised if Ken’s uncle was eventually investigated for tax evasion with how much cash his nephew was bound to be bringing in from another world, and promptly spending on whatever he saw fit. “Trust me, there’s no saving this.”

Really, thinking about it, maybe funding a long trip out of whatever Shadows could be tracked down wasn’t the best idea, but Ken had clearly needed familiar faces around, and he could only deny Aki and Koto so many times before getting worn down. Besides, if things got too bad… well, they could always just hop the next train back to Iwatodai.

Maybe they’d even find a way to bring the kid along. That’d probably be the best possible outcome.

“Not the normal way… and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to eat things that came out of a TV… The gravy back then didn’t really taste that great, either...” Wait a minute...

“...Are you sure it was Tartarus that was making you sick that year?”

* * *

  
  


It probably said something that the garden was producing as much as it did, but Ken had no idea what it was. Maybe it was just another one of those benefits that came with having a Persona. Maybe there was something really strange in the water or the soil. Maybe all plants grew that quickly and he was just imagining things.

Either way, there were plenty of fresh vegetables to snack on, and the yield didn’t look like it would be decreasing any time soon. “This garden’s going really well,” His uncle remarked. “When I was growing mine with my sister, it only got as far as the first harvest, and that was after a month of work.” All right, so at least Ken probably wasn’t imagining things.

Not that anyone else seemed to think there was anything strange about the garden producing a constant supply of incredibly nutritious vegetables that occasionally had strange effects when eaten by somebody with a Persona.

“Shinjiro-san and Kotone-san are good at cooking, right?” Nanako harvested an ear of corn, which presumably wasn’t something that was being produced by a lot of other gardens. “Do you think they’d be able to make us something with this?”

“Maybe if we asked nicely.” These veggies were already packed full of energy. Just what would being prepared to eat by other Persona Users do to them?

Ken was almost excited for the chance to find out. Even if no one on the team was a good enough cook to be able to replicate whatever happened, they could probably manage… well… something.

“Your… friends? Are they still in town?”

“They’re going to be here for the rest of the break,” Ken explained.

“...They’re college students, aren’t they? Wouldn't that be expensive for them?”

He shrugged. “They’ve… got ways of making sure they have money.” It then came to mind that it might be a bad idea to possibly imply that his friends were involved in organized crime. “I mean, when we met, it was because we were all being sponsored by the Kirijo Group, and they’re still friends with Mitsuru-san…” Honestly, this probably wasn’t much better.

His uncle blinked at him, as if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was hearing. “...I see.” He then continued silently working in the garden.

This might have been classifiable as an attempt to get to know each other better, but if it was, Ken wasn’t entirely sure he could consider it successful.

* * *

  
  


One of the members of SEES was a robot.

Naoto had heard as much from Yukiko, of course, but this was the first chance she had to see as much for herself. From a distance, Aigis looked human enough, and even getting closer, it was hard to tell unless she was looking for it.

“My disguise would be a lot less perfect, unfortunately, were I dressed for the weather,” She admitted with a sigh. “It seems that public beaches during tourist season are not in my future.”

There were a lot of things that Naoto could think of a robot possibly wanting for herself, but this was a new one. “The… beach?”

“The beach holds special memories for me. It was where I got to properly meet Minato-san, and I found Kotone-san soon afterwards. I can avoid notice by minimizing human interaction, but that only works when there is not a crowd.”

“I think there’s a small beach in the area that’s technically open for swimming,” Naoto suggested. “But people don’t often go there.”

“That may be worth looking into. I am not the only one whose personal appearance would attract attention, in a location with a large number of other people. Thank you for the suggestion.”

“It’s… not a problem.” It came to mind that she really didn’t know where to go from here. She was talking to a robot, which was amazing, though it would probably be rude to inquire too deeply into her inner workings. It was the sort of thing that, when she was a kid, she’d made long lists of things to ask about, but in the current situation, she couldn’t think of a single one.

“I think I like this town that you live in,” Aigis continued. “They say that, in a small town, everyone knows one another, but Inaba seems a bit too large for that to be true.”

“Th-that’s just a figure of speech, really…” Naoto sort of hoped she hadn’t actually needed to explain that, but it was hard to tell when the person she was talking to could simply choose not to emote. “And even if the people don’t know each other by name, any decently-major happenings are bound to be noticed and gossipped upon.”

“It’s very different from Iwatodai. Perhaps it’s just that I am used to the city. This is the first time I am visiting such a small town.” And wasn’t that strange to think about?

Aigis, a marvel of technical engineering, who carried what was presumably an immense amount of power of both the physical and Frei varieties, was still unfamiliar with the world, if a fair bit more adjusted to living in it than Teddie was. Never mind that her history sounded like something out of an epic fantasy.

“This is the first time in a while that I’m staying in a town like this, as well. There’s not as much need for detectives as there is in the city.” But then people had started being hung from telephone poles, and that had turned out to be a very effective way to get her attention. “And the people don’t always do well with outsiders.” All of the current muttering about Junes was a very good example of that. “While in the city, they go by without much fanfare.”

“I suppose differences in population density would contribute to that.” And, just like that, they had moved to a different topic entirely, if one that would lose the attention of anyone else trying to participate.

Even if it wasn’t the direction Naoto had originally been considering… it was nice to be able to talk with someone who could actually keep up with her.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: Naoto-san, you’re going to be at the summer festival, right? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: I have been considering attending. Why do you ask? _

_ Amada Ken: I’ve been thinking that maybe everyone could meet up there. I’m not sure we’ve ever had the whole group together to just relax, at least not where it actually worked out. _

_ Shirogane Naoto: I suppose your senpai are going to be there, as well? _

_ Amada Ken: Assuming nothing happens to get in the way of it, yes. It can be hard to make plans with them sometimes. And Aigis-san might not be happy about being surrounded by food she can’t eat, but it should be fine so long as she doesn’t get annoyed enough to start loudly pointing out what games are and aren’t rigged. _

_ Shirogane Naoto: ...Has that happened before? _

_ Amada Ken: …I’m not sure that matters. So, are you going to be there? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: ...I don’t see why not. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure Dojima can say anything about SEES' spending habits when he doesn't even pay enough attention to notice the prices on the packages Souji orders every week, or the large collection of swords that presumably piles up in his room. Or the fact that some of the packages contain swords.
> 
> And here I have achieved the thing I added Naoto to the team early for... when I could have just had her show up without an explanation. Still, it should be fun to see the results.


	76. In Which There Is a Festival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For once, there is an exciting event in Inaba that doesn't involve people dying.

If any of the people of Inaba were inclined to look closely at the other groups of people around the festival, they might have been surprised to notice a surprisingly large group gathered together in a disparity of ages, from proper adulthood to an adorable little girl.

This was a larger group than Ken had ever been with before, to an event like this. It only served to put into perspective just how many friends he had now.

“I wonder if anyone else from Yasogami’s had the same idea we did,” Kanji said. “I mean, we can’t be the only ones here.”

“I know Chie might be here,” Yukiko remarked. “The food isn’t the kind she normally eats, but that doesn’t normally stop her from showing up to eat it.”

Aigis nodded along. “There are a lot of kinds of food that are easiest to obtain during festivals. Even if they aren’t a favorite, I would recommend eating them while you have the chance.”

Nanako turned to look up at her. “Is there anything you’re looking forward to eating, Aigis-san?”

...It came to mind that maybe they should have considered this type of eventuality before now. Ken wasn’t sure if anyone had ever paused to think about what would be a good answer to that.

“I…” Aigis also seemed to be at a loss for words. Apparently, nobody had ever considered that a curious little girl might have asked that sort of question. “I am more interested in what sort of games are available to play.”

The human members of SEES let out a sigh of relief. She’d managed to dodge that question.

“It comes to mind,” Naoto spoke up, “That there may be a few too many of us gathered together to go about this efficiently.”

“You’re not wrong,” Akihiko agreed. “When we go to the festival in Iwatodai, it’s always in groups of two to four. I think most people would be scared, if all of us were to descend on them at once…” He wasn’t exactly wrong. Even discounting their group size, they were certainly a lively bunch.

“So, we should split up, then?” Rise asked. “I mean, we’ll all probably be meeting up later, but… Nanako-chan, your dad’s going to be here for you soon, right?”

“Yeah,” She nodded. “I don’t think he can be that busy.”

“I hope he’s not that busy…” Ken sighed. “We should probably wait for him… or, some of us, at least. I mean, if there’s… anyone else who doesn’t mind sticking around…” Even if it would only be a delay of a few minutes, they’d still come to enjoy the festival. He didn’t want to be in the way of that.

“It shouldn’t be too long of a wait,” Naoto stated. “With Kubo’s arrest, everything at the station has been winding down a bit. Not that I can entirely tell, when I’m not really given anything to do…” She seemed more than a little annoyed by that.

“That’s still everything that we know,” Ren pointed out. “Ken-senpai, I’ll be fine with staying with you for a bit. The food’s not going anywhere, after all.”

“It’s not…” Teddie agreed, looking pensive. “But there’s just so much here! Even if we get started right away, how will there be time for it all?”

Another thing they needed to give the bear was clearly a sense of scale. There was enough time left to the festival that they’d probably run out of things to do eventually. At the very least, Ken never ran out of time to do everything that he wanted in Iwatodai, and this place wasn’t anywhere near as large.

Still… it was nice to see that Teddie was just as charmed by the human world as he’d been from the very first day. It seemed as if the Shadow boy was definitely there to stay.

* * *

  
  


“Sorry I’m late.” Ken’s uncle appeared almost exactly five minutes later. “Adachi caught up to me with some questions I had to answer… no matter how dumb they were.”

“Don’t worry, Dojima-san,” Kotone said. “Nanako-chan’s been an absolute delight. Like Ken-kun when we met him, but less anger issues.”

Ken rolled his eyes, but didn’t say anything. Ren supposed he must have gotten used to this by now.

“Big Bro’s friends are all really cool,” Nanako spoke up. “And they tell great stories.”

The stories that the others had been telling were all embellished from their own exploits, at least as far as Ren could tell. Unless there were actual fairy tales about people coming to save a girl who could turn into a phoenix… it wasn’t worth looking up.

“Well. Thanks for looking after her. Come on, Nanako, let’s go do the target- I mean, the shooting gallery…” Ren watched as the little girl was led off by her father, already close to bursting with the urge to beg him for sweets.

“Shooting gallery?” Aigis repeated, as soon as they were out of earshot. “Does such a thing make for good target practice?”

“I’ve never tried it myself…” Naoto admitted. “It always seemed childish, and I’ve never had the urge for more practice than necessary, with how rarely there is any real reason to need a gun. Perhaps I’ll give it a try tonight. Does anyone want to come with me?”

“Um… I’ll go,” Kanji agreed. “I guess. Ted, you okay with coming along with Naoto?”

Teddie nodded. “I want to see everything in the festival!”

“Oh, so we’re all splitting up now?” Kotone’s hand slipped into Shinjiro’s faster than Ren could blink. “Come on, Shinji, let’s get something to eat. I haven’t had some of this stuff in such a long time…” They quickly disappeared into the crowd.

Rise glanced at Akihiko and Aigis. “None of you want to go with them?”

“Negative. I do believe that they would like to have some time to themselves.”

Akihiko nodded. “Yeah, it’s- well, it might not be that easy for you, but figuring out when they do or don’t want anyone else with them is sort of a survival skill for living with them.”

“And not just so we don’t end up walking in on them…” Ken agreed with a sigh. “I don’t know if I see it here, but Akihiko-san’s the one who actually does live with them, so we should just trust him on this. It’s the one social skill he has.”

“H-hey!” It was sort of amazing, to see someone who was practically a grown adult reduced to glaring halfheartedly at a young teenager.

“You do seem to lack social skills,” Aigis agreed. Before Akihiko could give any sort of response to that, she’d turned to Ren. “I believe we will be exploring this festival with Ken-san. Would you like to come along? You may enjoy it more if you are with someone your own age.”

There really wasn’t any reason to refuse.

* * *

  
  


Shinjiro was pretty sure that, to the average resident of Inaba, he had firmly earned the label of ‘that one weird guy who wears a coat in mid-August.’ He’d had worse labels, received looks that were a lot more scathing than this, but it probably said something that he’d managed to elicit confusion from an entire town. He would have thought that Iori would have gotten there first.

“It just figures that no one ever looks twice at Aigis…” Koto sighed, after staring away another person who got too close.

“I think you should realize by now that cute girls can get away with anything. Pretty sure that’s the only reason you were never caught last year after what happened with Ekoda.”

“You have no proof I was involved in any of that. Also, he deserved it.” It was probably a good thing nobody had ever thought to question her too deeply about anything. While Arisato made being completely unhelpful to anyone a major part of his philosophy, Koto could be a bit too helpful.

Given the sort of major consequences for a lot of the things she did, this was probably going to cause trouble eventually.

“For the record, if you actually want to deny this sort of thing, don’t immediately come out with the justifications.” That had gotten him and Aki into trouble far too many times.

“I’ll keep that in mind.” She took another bite of her empty calories on a stick. “You know, when Ken-kun says he doesn’t really fit here… it actually makes a lot of sense. Coming from Iwatodai, it’s… a really big adjustment. I’m not sure I could do it.”

Of course not. Koto lived and breathed the excitement of the city, of being surrounded by people from all backgrounds and walks of life. If she had to live in a place like this, she’d either go insane or start looking for the nearest nest of Shadows to immerse herself in.

All things considered, it was probably a good thing the kid had chosen the second option.

“If he was kept here for too long, Aki’d probably self-destruct,” He agreed. “Or disappear through the television.” He just couldn’t sit still for very long at all. Shinjiro was well aware that he was probably the only thing keeping his brother from running off in search of the perfect adrenaline rush, particularly after he’d experienced the ultimate high of fighting against the apocalypse.

“I’d say that’s mean, but… you’re probably right,” She nodded along. “Not a lot of places to hide from fangirls, either.”

“We’re really never gonna let him live that down, are we?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

At the very least, it was impossible to deny that she had an excellent point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, let's just split everyone into groups, and maybe I can get past this general span of time in a reasonable amount of chapters. It's a festival. How long can it possibly take?
> 
> ...I'm genuinely considering just writing a relatively short prequel focusing on these two, but there's a seventy percent chance it'd just be shameless fluff. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but when packaged with this story, would probably give a person whiplash.


	77. In Which They All Have Fun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone gets to enjoy themselves at the festival, even if the topics of conversation occasionally leave something to be desired.

Despite the interest she’d shown earlier, Naoto did not immediately make a beeline for the shooting game. Kanji supposed that was only fair, given the massive advantage she’d have over anyone else.

Alternatively, it was because she couldn’t shoot things and eat snacks at the same time, and these were some really good snacks. He was wondering if maybe he could keep Teddie distracted just by handing him something to eat and hoping that he’d take his time instead of choking on a piece of takoyaki.

There was someone else standing near them, who looked mainly disinterested with everything that was going on. “Hey, Naoki,” Kanji greeted him, “You alright? It doesn’t look like you’re having any real fun.”

Then again, these days, Naoki never seemed to be having any fun. Everything seemed to come down to his sister, and what happened to her, and how fractured his family still was.

“...I’m fine,” He said, sounding very much not fine. “I mean, no one’s really been talking to me, especially after I got kicked off the Health Committee, but…”

“Wait, they kicked you off the Health Committee? Why?” It was the one thing Naoki did after school. The rest of the time, he just… went straight home to his parents’ shop.

He shook his head. “They said I wasn’t concentrating well enough, but I think they just didn’t want me around.”

Well. It wasn’t like he could have ever accused their schoolmates of being the most empathetic sort. A lot of them had grown up since grade school, but it never seemed like it was enough.

“Really?” Teddie blinked up at Naoki. “But you seem really nice!”

“People aren’t always reasonable in how they deal with others, Teddie,” Naoto quietly explained. “Particularly when it means trying to understand people who aren’t like them in some way. Even things as minor as age and gender can be massive dividing lines in a society.”

“...I don’t get it.” Kanji wondered if maybe it was for the better that way. Sure, if Teddie stuck around in this world, sooner or later he’d experience that sort of thing for himself, but…

Maybe it would be better to preserve the bear’s innocence for just a bit longer. “You’ll understand when you’re older. See you around, Naoki.”

“You should enjoy yourselves,” His friend agreed. “Everything’s perfectly safe, after all…”

The sheer disdain hidden in those words probably meant something, but he was nowhere near to figuring out what.

* * *

  
  


One of the big issues with being in Inaba and not Iwatodai was that, in smaller crowds, in groups of people that were more likely to all know each other, strange things were a lot easier to notice. Nobody outright commented on Aigis’ looks, or how she and Akihiko clearly weren’t from around there, but Ken could feel their curious gazes.

Not that anyone said anything. “They’ll probably only stop talking once they think you’re not around to hear,” Ren commented. “They do that, but… sometimes, people hear them anyway.”

In that moment, Ken recalled the first location they’d sought out inside of the other world, where insults were thrown on the air in hushed tones loud enough for anyone to hear. “It’s the same everywhere you go. In cities, it just gets drowned out by everything else, assuming that they notice anything.” It was nice, to be able to slip into a crowd where nobody knew his name.

“They do not usually notice anything,” Aigis remarked. “Their lives are too busy for idle gossip.” That was definitely another way to see it.

“Really? That sounds nice.” Ren’s gaze was fixed forward, the lights around the festival reflecting off of his glasses. “I think I’d like the city.”

He probably would. Assuming that he didn’t just lose himself in the crowd and never come out again. That was another real possibility.

“It’s only great until you need someone to notice you,” Ken warned him. “At that point, it gets a lot less fun.” Not that he disagreed, really, on the point of stealth being sort of important. All things considered, that was probably how nobody in SEES was ever questioned for carrying weapons. He still wasn’t sure how they kept managing to get through Junes.

“I guess that depends on what you need,” Akihiko commented. “I… don’t know if I could live here. It’s not a bad place, I just…”

“You need to live in a town that at least has a gym,” Ken agreed. “Or maybe you could get better coping methods.”

“I’m not sure you have any room to talk, there…”

“What do you mean? I’m doing just fine!” Or, well, as fine as it was possible for someone dealing with a murder mystery in a place where he didn’t really fit to be.

Akihiko, Ren, and Aigis all glanced at him. “...What?”

* * *

  
  


“Do you ever get the feeling that one of our teammates has just said something really stupid?” Rise asked.

“Not really,” Yukiko admitted. “But one of my classmates keeps putting his foot in his mouth all the time, so maybe I’m just too used to it.” Yosuke was all right, in small doses, but if he ever went on to successfully have children, then she would applaud Chie’s sense of self-control.

She wouldn’t do so now. These days, Chie was just as quick to pick fights as she’d ever been, even with nothing to really fight against. It was sort of concerning…

“Maybe, but… I don’t know if it’s the same kind of dumb thing.”

“Maybe it’s just Himiko,” She suggested. “Even if I can’t use Konohana Sakuya’s powers here, I can still feel her. So maybe your Persona’s trying to tell you something.” It wasn’t like her own fires stopped burning just because she couldn’t manifest them. Why wouldn’t Himiko be continually trying to gather information?

Rise paused. “Can she do that? I can’t exactly summon her here…”

“I don’t know. Maybe we could ask one of Ken-kun’s senpai about that, while they’re here. If Ken-kun knew what your powers are, they have to have a Navigator.” It was the sort of thing that just made sense. Such a power would be very useful to any Persona team.

“And even if they don’t know the answer right away, I suppose that’s what phones are for…” Rise paused and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter, though. Even if Himiko does have something to tell me, I can figure that out on my own.”

Yukiko supposed that there was something to be said for the amount of effort she was willing to make. “I might still ask if there’s any way we can use our powers out here. It would be nice to have the option, don’t you think?” Even if she never needed it… she could think of a lot of potential applications for Diarama and Agilao.

She received a laugh in return. “Yukiko-senpai, don’t set anything on fire.”

“I make no promises.” She wouldn’t. While she still had mixed feelings about Inaba, her friends all lived there. Setting it on fire seemed like a very easy way to end those friendships with little to no chance of recovery.

She wasn’t sure how she’d feel if someone else were to try and destroy it… But acting to do it herself was very definitely not in her future.

* * *

  
  


Nao-chan’s aim was just as good for winning festival games as it was for fighting Shadows. Teddie could only stare in awe past his most recent snack, while Miss Fox stood next to him.

“Yip!” She expressed approval of Nao-chan’s abilities both in battle and at play.

“She is really cool, isn’t she?” He agreed. “But… should you be out right now? There’s a lot…” He gestured around himself, at all of the people surrounding them. Sure, only Nao-chan had ever seen them going through Junes, but things could be different here.

Miss Fox tilted her head to the side. “Yip!” She didn’t understand the question.

Honestly, it was hard for Teddie to really understand it, too, other than how it meant that he could only really go places freely so long as he looked human. He missed his fur, but it was a small price to pay for being able to spend time with other people.

“I… don’t think people like having animals around, a lot of the time.” He, admittedly, had no way of knowing if he was right or not, but it was the answer that made sense to him. “I dunno… maybe they think you’d just get in the way…” Or they were scared, maybe, but that didn’t make all that much sense, either.

The fox gave her equivalent of a shrug and effectively told Teddie to enjoy the rest of the festival before loping off into the crowd, expertly weaving around people’s legs so that they never even noticed her presence.

When Kanji and Nao-chan had finally exhausted their enthusiasm for shooting at small targets, he hurried right up to them. “Come on! There’s still a lot we have to see!”

“Whoa, Ted! Slow down! We’ve got time!”

“But we haven’t been to that many places, yet! And it’s already dark!”

“If you run out of time tonight, there’s always tomorrow,” Nao-chan pointed out. “Though, it would probably be nice to meet up with everyone again in time for the fireworks…”

“Fireworks?” He blinked. “Like the things Renren throws at Shadows sometimes?”

“These are a bit bigger than the stuff Ren uses,” Kanji explained. “They have all kinds of shapes, colors… can be fun to watch, long as you’re okay with loud noises.”

“That sounds fun!” But of course it did. The human world was full of amazing things, and Teddie wanted to experience each and every one. Fireworks would just be the next item on a long, long list of things that he wanted to see.

But, of course, that was for tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken, sweetie, I'm sorry, but your coping mechanisms could also use a bit of work. It's the sort of thing that really does describe SEES as a whole.
> 
> Chie was meant to be somewhere in this mess, but apparently she'd prefer to keep being an offscreen disaster. At least she probably won't be able to escape in Iwatodai...


	78. In Which There Are Fireworks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The second day of the summer festival goes by with roughly as many events as the first, just spaced out somewhat differently.

The next morning, Chie invited Yukiko to the festival with her. While she’d been there the previous evening with her teammates, she didn’t really have the urge to refuse, either, and caught the first bus going down from the inn.

But then, this was one of the only times in a year that Chie could be seen regularly snacking on something that wasn’t meat, and maybe that was something worth extra consideration.

“You know, you’ve been spending a lot of time with Kanji-kun and his friends,” Chie commented. “I mean, I know you’re friends with him and stuff, but…”

Okay, there really was no good way to deal with this. How was Yukiko supposed to explain that she was friends with a group that was half children because the children had saved her life once and granted her incredibly healing abilities and powers over fire? She’d never believe it.

...Well, okay, she could think of one way Chie would believe it, but she wasn’t about to go shoving her best friend through any television sets. She was pretty sure this was the kind of thing that the team had formed in order to stop.

“Well, Ren-kun’s… charismatic.” That was probably a good way to put it, that didn’t involve the supernatural powers or the fact that the youngest members of the group were also the ones who had the most experience with Shadows and the other world. “And Ken-kun’s really mature for his age.”

“You aren’t wrong…” Chie agreed, as if she knew the half of it. “It’s just… I don’t think I’ve spent that much time with you during the break yet, and that’s…”

It was sort of odd, now that her attention had been brought to it. The two of them used to do everything together. And now one of them was being kept in the dark while the other one wandered into another world and set stuff on fire. Life was funny like that.

“I-I know I haven’t been around a lot,” She admitted. “And… Ren-kun already made me promise to see the fireworks with his group, but… maybe you could come along? Ken-kun and Sanada-san should be there.”

Chie’s eyes lit up. “Master’s going to be there?” Yukiko wondered if perhaps she had made a mistake. “Sure, I’ll come to the fireworks with you.” Were it not for the sentence beforehand, it would have been easy enough to pretend that Yukiko had just asked her friend on a date.

Honestly, she thought that, if she had, it would have been a lot simpler.

* * *

  
  


Marie paused. Ren turned to her. “Is something wrong?”

“Over there… isn’t that one of your friends?” He glanced in the direction she was pointing, and sure enough, there was Yukiko, talking to Chie about something.

“Yeah, but it looks like she’s got one of her own friends to talk to now.” He really didn’t want to intrude on that… “You can ask her about it later, if you decide to stay around this evening. You… wanted to see the fireworks, right?” His parents probably wouldn’t be there, but it wasn’t like they’d ever noticed him leaving the house before.

She nodded. “Liz says there’s something of an art to them. I want to see if that’s true.”

“Who’s…?”

“She’s one of Lavenza’s siblings,” Marie shrugged. “She’s the fun one. Theo’s not much fun at all. He just... worries about everything.”

Right… Kotone had said, once, that different Wild Cards got to have different assistants, and Lavenza and Marie were his. So those siblings must have worked with Kotone and Minato. “Really? What do you mean?”

“Well… Liz picks on him. Tells him things that… I don't know if they’re true or not, but he believes all of them, and… well. We could teach him if we had a television, but we don’t have any eclectic loutwets in the Velvet Room. I want to watch television…”

This was not the first time Marie had made that complaint. Ren had a long list of times that Marie had made that complaint, and if he didn’t know she would make him sign it, he would have long suggested that she just start a petition or something. There weren’t exactly a lot of people she could ask for support.

“I guess you can’t… really see things go by out the window.” From his few experiences with being on a train, Ren could say that was easily the best part. At least, with what he could remember of them. It had been a long time ago.

“It’s too… foggy,” She agreed. “And I dunno if there’s anything outside the window at all. Also, sometimes the train changes speed or something and it messes up my writing.”

Ren had never experienced anything like that in the Velvet Room, so he supposed he’d just have to take Marie's word for it. “Is that why you like being outside so much? It’s easier for your poems?”

“They’re not poems…” She grumbled. He didn’t believe her.

* * *

  
  


The best place to watch fireworks, according to Ren, was the big hill overlooking the town. Ken supposed that there’d at least have to be space there, which was good, because Ren and Yukiko had both invited another person to join them for this thing.

Ken had spent time with Marie and Chie before- the former just showed up every now and again, and it wasn’t strange to see the latter and Yukiko together, far from it- but the two of them turning up was still somewhat unexpected.

Then again, he supposed he’d started it, what with the small crowd of extra Persona Users that tended to gather around him. By this point, his uncle was probably extremely confused, even if Nanako was clearly loving all of the attention.

“This looks like a good spot.” Rise was clearly relieved to be putting her cooler of food down. Ken hadn’t seen what was inside it, but he was pretty sure it was just prepackaged sandwiches.

He wasn’t in the habit of eating those- a lot of his food choices, for years, were based on how well they’d work to heal paper cuts, and also how badly the wrappers would pollute Tartarus or the TV world- but he supposed it was a lot easier than trying to get someone to cook. And was more reasonable than whatever food Kotone would have tried purchasing for the entire group. Being friends with Mitsuru had not done any favors to her self-control.

Teddie, of course, jumped right to that subject. “So, what kind of food do we have?”

“Well, we’ve got tuna sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches, and some fried tofu because Grandma had extra stock. Take what you’d like. ...No, not you, Koro-chan.”

Koromaru ducked his head away with a whine. Ken supposed it had been a good try.

Kanji blinked at Rise. “You didn’t add extra spice to the tofu, did you?”

“Not too much of it! Just a little sprinkle!”

Ken wasn’t entirely sure he trusted her on that, given Kanji’s reaction to her tastes in cheese. And Teddie’s. He’d taken a slice from that cheese block and proceeded to drink an entire can of lemonade to get rid of the flavor. But that might have just been him being Teddie.

“Um… what were you sprinkling on there, exactly?” Chie asked. Ken wasn’t sure why she was so scared, when she’d never had an encounter with Rise’s taste buds before.

Marie blinked at them. “What are you scared of? It’s just food. If you’re gonna be scared, I can try it.”

“Or I could test if it’s safe,” Yukiko suggested. “If it’s too hot for me, then nobody but Rise-chan should eat it.” Ken wasn’t entirely sure that was how spice worked, but he was going to trust the person who had fire resistance on this.

They ended up giving Rise all of the fried tofu.

* * *

  
  


Going to the fireworks with friends, instead of by himself, had been… interesting. Ren had watched Nanako run across the grass, Chie and Akihiko swap training suggestions while Naoto tried convincing them that they were all bad ideas, and Marie make the terrible mistake of trying to steal Rise’s tofu.

The fact that Aigis hadn’t drawn massive amounts of attention from other people was because Koromaru was sitting on her.

Once the whole thing was done, he glanced at Marie. “So, what did you think?” She had a notebook out, and was furiously writing… something. Whether it was about the fireworks, or Rise’s tastes in spice, he had no idea.

“Huh? Oh, um… they were nice. But loud.” She flipped the notebook shut, presumably due to no longer having any light to work by. “The food was…”

“You shouldn’t have tried taking it from Rise-san,” He agreed. “I’m not sure how she hasn’t burned away her taste buds…”

Marie nodded, the grimace on her face telling Ren that she had clearly learned her lesson.

“...I liked the sandwiches, though. But that girl with the headphones, why was she…?”

“You mean Aigis-san?” He knew Kotone had her own headphones, but he wasn’t sure she’d been wearing them that day. Probably because any music she listened to would just be drowned out. “She isn’t exactly… normal. I’m not sure any of Ken-senpai’s friends are.” Really, the group in Inaba could maybe have been considered Exhibit A.

Marie looked like she wanted to say something else, but she didn’t. This was probably for the best. They needed to get her back to the Velvet Room soon, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent so much time figuring out how to get Naoto here... and then Marie decided to take the chapter for herself. Sure. Just go do whatever, I guess.


	79. In Which Plans Are Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Specifically, beach plans. There is much excitement.

Ren was not entirely unused to his time with friends being interrupted by adults. It was just a thing that happened, sometimes, when everyone he interacted with was, in some way or another, beholden to other people.

In the case of Rise, this tended to go strange places more often than not, what with her being a celebrity. It was uncomfortable even to witness, and every time it happened, Ren understood more and more about why her Shadow had been… like that.

It never got any less weird, no matter who it was. Even when it was someone who actually did, theoretically, have a reason for speaking with her.

“You… really don’t want to go back to that, do you?” He asked, after it was all over.

“I don’t know,” She replied, sitting down with a huff. “I need a break, a longer one than just for the summer. I’ve been doing this for almost three years, now, and it just… It’s a lot, sometimes.”

She sounded tired. Ren wasn’t surprised. He could be run ragged, sometimes, just talking to people, and he didn’t even have the expectations thrust on him that someone like Rise would have.

It was no wonder she wanted to stop. He didn’t have nearly enough Social Links for an entire tarot deck, and he was still tired, sometimes, of having to help everyone and never being sure if he’d said the right thing to do that beyond the occasional rush of power.

“That long? Really?” That sort of mental stamina… it was no wonder she was such an effective Navigator. Not that Teddie hadn’t been good at it, but he had stumbled over what was immune to what at times.

She nodded. “It was… it wasn’t something I was trying for, really, but it just... happened that way.” There were… a lot of confusing things about that second.

“Really?” Ren wasn’t sure that he could ever sound skeptical enough. “How do you just happen to become an idol?” And an extremely popular one at that.

“Well, I wasn’t actually trying to become one, but my uncle sent in an audition tape anyway… I thought it couldn’t hurt to just go with it.” He wondered if she regretted that decision at all.

“Really? Just like that?”

She glanced down. “Well, if I didn’t… my parents would have been disappointed. They say I need to honor all my commitments… even if I didn’t know that they existed.”

There was probably something wrong with that, but Ren didn’t have enough experience with attentive parents to be able to tell for sure. “But you… didn’t make that commitment.”

Rise didn’t respond, but it seemed like the two of them got closer from that. “...I’d better go home. Grandma might need help in the afternoon.”

It was hard to tell if she was being truthful about that or not.

* * *

  
  


Ryotaro still wasn’t completely sure why his nephew’s former caretakers had chosen to spend the summer in Inaba, but he was starting to get used to their presence. Mostly, they’d be in the garden, but sometimes they’d be invited into the house, and that tended to involve dinner being of a relatively higher quality than the usual fare.

“I’ve been looking over the bus routes,” Shiomi brought up one day, “And I think I’ve found an affordable way to get us over to the beach- and everyone else, too.”

Aragaki glanced at her. “Does it involve you paying for everything?”

“I’m sure the others have pocket money,” She replied, which was… not actually an answer, really.

“That does sound like fun,” Ken agreed. “Even if it probably won’t be that much like Yakushima.”

There were a lot of things about these kids that Ryotaro couldn’t help but question. Somehow, the idea that they’d been to Yakushima in the past was able to slip into the background along with everything else.

Ken turned to Ryotaro. “Could I go with them? Please?” He didn’t think he’d ever heard the kid so desperate for something before.

...Actually, he couldn’t recall his nephew ever really asking him for anything. Most of the time, the kid just… did what he wanted.

...What did Ken do during the daytime, anyway?

Ryotaro glanced at the blonde girl- Aigis, that was her name, he’d never actually gotten a surname from her. “Can I trust you all to look after him?”

She blinked eerily bright blue eyes at him. “Why wouldn’t we? We have been doing so for two years already.” This was admittedly a good point. He couldn’t even feel insulted that she counted the time Ken had been in Inaba. It wasn’t like he’d had the time to look after him. There were just too many things that were much more important.

This still sort of left the question of why these people were so invested in a thirteen-year-old’s well-being, but it was probably a good thing that the kid had anyone looking after him at all.

“Some of his other friends will probably want to come along, too,” Sanada added. Ryotaro supposed that, since there wasn’t much reason to suspect Amagi of murder anymore, this was probably meant to be sort of relieving.

He fixed his gaze on Ken. “...I’d better not regret letting you go. Whenever it happens, make sure you come home before it gets dark out.” This was the reasonable parent thing to do, right?

Whatever it was, the kid definitely seemed to be happy with it.

* * *

  
  


“The beach?” Ren repeated, wondering how much of his excitement had slipped into his words.

Ken nodded. “Right. And Kotone-san’s figured out the bus route, and it’s easily enough that we can afford it, what with…” No matter how good it was at conveying his point, Ren wished that he would just stop miming shooting himself, if only because, one of these days, that actually was going to bring out Kala-Nemi. “Do you want to come along?”

“Y-yeah. That… that would be nice.” He’d never actually been swimming before, but as long as he stayed at the edge of the water, it’d be fine, right? “Are the… others coming, too?”

“I’m not sure. You’re the first person I asked.” Ken leaned back, looking up at the sky. “Nanako wanted to come, too, but Uncle didn’t think that was a good idea, and I… sort of agree. If for different reasons than he thinks.” Right… Nanako was six, and six-year-olds, even really grown-up ones, might have had questions about why Ken was friends with a robot.

“I… guess that there’s a few things you’d rather keep from them.”

“I mean, there’s no rules against people like Aigis existing, but if they ask about her, she might not remember to lie, or not be convincing enough, and… it’s easiest for her to enjoy the water when she doesn’t have to hide what she is.”

That made sense. Ren couldn’t imagine ever having a secret like that. Sure, he’d probably be able to keep it, but… “Does she go to the beach a lot?”

“Only when Mitsuru-san feels like bringing us all to Yakushima. Which… it’s happened, a few times. Mostly in spring when there’s not as many people as in summer.” That was still a lot more beach experience than Ren had ever had. “It was nice.”

He supposed it would have been. “I guess… it might be hard to adjust to a smaller beach, though.”

“Maybe…” Ken paused, before glancing at him. “Oh, but is this going to be okay with your parents?” Right, people usually asked permission for this kind of thing…

“It should be fine as long as I’m home on time.” Assuming that they were home on time. “...Maybe I won’t even need that.” But he didn’t like thinking of that part.

“We’ll be back before dark. That was… sort of a condition for me being able to go. So it should be fine.” Ren was glad that his friend wasn’t insisting that he ask his parents about it outright. They’d probably bring up the subject of his grades- which were already some of the best in his class- despite how he wouldn’t really be able to do anything about them until school was back in session. He wasn’t sure why they even thought that was something they could bring up, when they gave him no help with them whatsoever, but there it was.

“I’m glad you’ll be there.” Ken fished out his phone. “I’m gonna ask the others if they can go, too. It’d be nice if we could spend some more time all together… especially since my senpai are going to have to leave soon unless they want to skip some of their classes.” Right… summer was almost over, and that meant going back to school. Ren could have done without the reminder, honestly.

“Yeah… that would be nice,” He agreed. “I… wonder when the next time we’ll see them is.” Because it sort of went without saying that they would be seeing them again, at this point.

“I’m not sure. All the times I can think of in the next few months where they might want to see me are in the middle of the week, and while Minato-san’s fine with cutting class, the rest of them are… a bit less okay with it.” It almost looked like he wanted to say more, but if he did, he decided against it.

“All… right. So when are we going, anyway?” It was probably a good idea to change the subject back to the beach. And maybe consider who to ask for swimming lessons.

“We were thinking either tomorrow or the day after. It depends on what day more people can make it on. ...This would probably be easier if you had a phone.”

“It’ll be fine. I’ll just… go to the bus stop in the morning both days and see if anyone’s there.”

Ken didn’t look like he had a very high opinion of Ren’s time management abilities, but he refrained from saying anything. This was probably for the best.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I took a look at Rise's Social Link, and wow, that's a lot of implications. Maybe it's just because it's vaguely reminiscent of my time with the Girl Scouts, which can basically be summed up with the word 'entrapment' but... Yeah.
> 
> Anyway. Beach. That is definitely happening.


	80. In Which There Is A Beach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The group goes to the beach and has a good time.

There were few things more chaotic than a busful of teenagers on their way to the beach. Between the kid in the bear suit, the idol singing along with the radio, and the detective having a serious conversation with a robot about robotics, peace and quiet was a foreign concept.

Koto had put her headphones on less than a minute into the ride, and was now steadfastly ignoring everything but the landscape going by out the window. Shinjiro couldn’t blame her. As it was, he was hoping that whatever Aki was talking to Kanji about didn’t involve copious amounts of lightning.

Knowing Aki, and how Ken had first described Kanji to him, the topic of their conversation probably involved copious amounts of lightning.

But he could pretend it didn’t. So long as their beach trip didn’t get cancelled by a freak thunderstorm, whatever those two did with their powers was decidedly not his business. Aki could take care of himself, and presumably knew full well how to not zap anything he didn’t intend to.

The younger Wild Card in the bus seemed more amazed with everything that was going on than anything else. “Never been on a trip like this before, kid?”

Ren shook his head. “I’ve… only really been as far as Okina. And only on really special days… it hasn’t happened in a while. My parents are too busy to take me, and… I don’t really know trains.”

“Could get Ken to teach you,” He suggested. “None of us would’ve gotten far in Iwatodai without knowing how they work.” The city was just a bit too big for that. Adding on how neither Kotone or Arisato particularly liked going near the bridge, and Aigis seemed to be doing her best to scrub it from her navigational data, and there really wasn’t much other choice.

“I… maybe I will.” He adjusted his glasses. Shinjiro wasn’t sure if he actually needed them to see or not, but he seemed to like wearing them, and that was probably the important thing.

The bus hit a bump in the road, and Teddie almost flew out of his seat. Somehow, this was no stranger than everything else that had been going on.

Koto still seemed to be blissfully oblivious. The wonders of headphones…

* * *

  
  


The bus driver had seemed really glad to get rid of the group, and Ken couldn’t blame him in the slightest. It was… definitely a lot to handle, to be surrounded by people like them and with no way of getting free other than getting them to their destination.

The beach, meanwhile, was… small. There was plenty of space for their group, and not much more, which was another reason, besides Aigis, that he hoped nobody else had wanted to go swimming that day. They’d probably attract a lot more attention here than on Yakushima.

Teddie, being Teddie, already had a swimsuit on under his fur. He stared at the water with wide blue eyes, visibly holding himself off from just charging into the surf. “So this is what the ocean looks like!”

“Course it is,” Kanji stated. “You’ve seen it on TV, haven’t you?”

“Yeah, but that’s not the same as seeing it here!” Ken couldn’t disagree. He’d grown up a short distance away from a vast expanse of water, which he’d seen at all times of day and in all kinds of weather, and was more than qualified to say that there was no way a screen could capture everything about it. It just didn’t catch the light in quite the same way.

“It also looks different from different places,” He added. “This doesn’t look all that much like Yakushima, and they’re both a very different view from Iwatodai.” And looking at it now… he’d missed the ocean. He hadn’t even fully realized up until this point how strange it was to be living someplace that didn’t smell even faintly of salt.

“There are a lot of different views,” Aigis agreed. “And most of them are very enjoyable. Those I do not enjoy are mostly due to personal reasons.”

Ken hoped nobody thought to ask about the personal reasons. This was probably not the time to be discussing the personal reasons. If he was lucky, maybe they’d never have to discuss the personal reasons.

Fortunately, nobody seemed to be all that interested in Aigis’ personal rating system for seaside views. Which was good. There were other things they could be doing with their time. Such as enjoying the beach.

At least then the thing everyone would be worrying most about would be how long it took it to turn into a massive water fight.

It probably wouldn’t take that long. Some of their number really weren’t the best at self-control.

* * *

  
  


Ren thought he liked the beach.

Sure, he wasn’t confident that he’d figure out swimming quickly enough to go very far out, and the sand was probably going to be annoying when it was time to leave, but he liked it when the waves washed over his toes. It was nice.

Teddie, meanwhile, crashed into the waves as soon as he got the chance, sending water flying everywhere. It was colder than the rest, but whether that meant anything or was just the Shadow’s natural ice affinity kicking in was impossible to say.

Shinjiro winced. “Hey, careful. I’ve only got one shirt with me.”

“You don't exactly have to wear it…” Kanji pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’ll be better if I do. Trust me on this.”

Aigis nodded. “Had everyone present not already known of my origins, I would also have chosen to remain clothed. Of course, wet fabric is less of an issue for me than it is for the others…” Ren supposed it would be. What with already having a greater range of movement than most human beings. “And, so long as nobody makes too much of a splash, this should not become a major problem.”

Ren was distracted from that subject by Rise handing him a pail. “Come on, Ren-kun, let’s make some sand castles. See how far we can get before the tide comes in.”

He assumed, from those words, that they wouldn’t be all that far from the water. Which was good. Just because he couldn’t swim didn’t mean that he didn’t want to avoid the waves.

“Do you think Teddie would like to make them, too?” He suggested. “It might keep the water warmer for everyone else.” And it wasn’t like he didn’t have the patience for making things.

She rolled her eyes. “Please. We all know he’d just start bawling as it got washed away.” He… couldn’t actually deny that. Teddie’s overblown reactions were definitely a thing of wonder.

“I bet he’d be able to make something really good, though.” Or he’d run off looking for potential decorations and never come back. It was hard to tell with him.

Still, he seemed perfectly happy paddling through the shallows, so maybe there wasn’t that much point to wondering about it, after all.

* * *

  
  


The sandcastle, temporary as it may have been, was still something Ren supposed could be considered an accomplishment. It wasn’t particularly decorated- a piece of driftwood here, a chipped piece of a shell there- nor did it cover a vast distance, but it was tall.

Actually, it would probably have been more accurate to call it a tower, at that point, but the specific word choice didn’t really matter to him all that much.

“Huh. I think we did pretty well,” Rise declared. “Not bad for an idol and an… um… how old are you again?” He supposed he should have expected that question from her eventually.

“Eleven. My birthday isn’t until the middle of September.” Right when school would be back in full swing, because of course it was.

“So, yeah, not bad at all. You know, it almost seems like a shame to leave it here for the ocean to take care of,” She commented, taking a step back so she could see it better. “...Maybe we should flood it ourselves.”

Why was that the first thing that came to mind? “How would we do that?”

For the second time that day, he had a pail shoved at him. “We fill these with water, dump them on, and watch it all crumble.” For someone who had no combat capabilities, she sounded just a bit too excited by the destruction. “...Or we could ask Aigis-san if she has a water gun attachment. Or have Teddie put his fur on and stage a rampage. ...You know, there’s a lot of ways we could do this.”

Ren glanced out at where the others were playing in the waves. At some point, Ken and Akihiko had apparently gotten into some kind of disagreement that they were attempting to solve with water-based warfare. Teddie and Yukiko were also apparently avoiding each other, possibly due to a temperature-based disagreement, but it was hard to be sure.

“I’m… not sure the others will help with this,” He stated. “They seem…” Naoto tripped and nearly landed on Kotone. “...Busy.”

He was pretty sure they weren’t going to drown each other, at least. Which was good, because he didn’t think he’d be able to do anything to rescue them.

“Yeah, that’s a bit too much chaos… let’s just get a bunch of water and see how it stands up to it.”

As it turned out, tall as it was, their construction was still basically incapable of standing up to a large amount of water poured from overhead. Which wasn’t that much of a surprise, but now Ren had wet sand covering his toes, instead of just between them.

Still. This had been surprisingly fun. And he hadn’t yet had to admit to anyone that he couldn’t swim.

Sure, they’d probably figure it out on their own, but… it probably didn’t matter, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One can only hope that, by the time they went back, they'd tired themselves out enough for the poor bus driver not to go insane.
> 
> One can also presume, however, that after this, Teddie had sand stuck in his fur for a week.


	81. In Which Discussions Are Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Some topics are more fun than others.

“Say, Akihiko-san, I never got the chance to ask before, but… how do you like this town?”

“It’s… all right, I guess? I mean, there’d not that much to do, but…”

Ken blinked. “But the Persona Users here get to see a lot more action than the Shadow Operatives ever do,” He finished. Akihiko could be predictable like that.

“...Yeah, basically.” It was nice to see he was the same as ever. “I mean, I know I shouldn’t be happy about Shadows doing stuff, but… you’re keeping up your training, right?”

“I’m… no sure I need to,” Ken admitted, thinking back. “Back when I first started working with Ren-san, I… almost overloaded him with healing magic. The others are catching up to me, but… you know most Persona Users probably never get as strong as we are?”

There was, of course, a very good reason for this, in that most Persona Users hadn’t climbed all the way up Tartarus, or challenged the Reaper, or scoured several floors of the tower searching for miscellaneous items at the request of a bunch of strange people in blue. But that probably didn’t matter, so much, when there weren’t that many Persona Users around.

Really, Ken only knew as many as he did due to a combination of bad luck and attempted murder, so that probably said something about it right there.

Akihiko nodded. “Yeah, but that’s not exactly stopping us from getting better. You know Mitsuru’s got this new magic thing she’s working on? Won’t tell anyone what it is, though… All I know is that everything’s covered in ice afterwards.”

“Niflheim?” He suggested.

Akihiko shuddered. “Don’t even joke about that.”

It wasn’t entirely a joke, actually. Ken remembered how, the first time they’d seen Skadi use that spell, Mitsuru had stared at it in unrestrained awe. It took a lot to impress Kirijo Mitsuru, and even more to do it enough that she didn’t try to hide it. But Minato had managed with Skadi.

But he could certainly see why the prospect of Mitsuru wielding such a power would be concerning, so he let the subject matter drop. He wasn’t a big fan of having so much ice in one place, either.

...But, in all seriousness, she probably was making an attempt at Niflheim.

It probably was a good thing Ken wasn’t in Iwatodai at the moment. He didn’t want to be there if her attempts backfired and made winter arrive early.

* * *

  
  


“...Hey, Ai-chan?” Teddie started, wondering why he thought this was a good idea.

“What is it?” She replied, blinking placidly at him. It was sort of creepy- he’d never seen a human making an expression like that- but he supposed he didn’t really have any room to talk, when it came to being different from everyone else.

He fidgeted a little, before finding his courage and bulldozing his way through. “Why are you nice to me?”

“I… beg your pardon?” She was clearly confused, despite how this had been a simple question.

“Well… you’re made to fight Shadows, aren’t you?” And even if he’d gotten a Persona… even if he was living with the humans… even if everyone said he was more than that… was he, really?

“I believe we have already established that you are not exactly a normal Shadow,” She stated, as if that were the only reason necessary. “...Besides, while destroying Shadows was a major part of my initial programming, an equally important part told me that humans- with certain exceptions, the guidelines for which were, in hindsight, extremely questionable- were to be protected.”

“But, I’m… not human.” He thought that had been established. Sure, he looked like one, most of the time, but that still didn’t change that he wasn’t quite like them, even if most people would never notice the difference.

“Maybe not, but you are still a person. And that is more important than your origins. ...You aren’t the first Shadow I’ve encountered who was like this.”

“Really?” There were more like him?

“Yes. He wasn’t part of this world for very long, and we didn’t have a very positive relationship… but it’s because of him that I can live as I do now. So whatever your origins might have meant in the past… that is still in the past. Even if it’s the kind of story I never expected would happen twice.”

That made sense. It was like how Teddie had never expected to meet anyone like Renren, but it turned out there were two of them. But… there weren’t really, because nobody could be quite like Renren.

“Well, I- I’m glad you’re nice to me.” Kenny wouldn’t be beary happy if two of his friends were fighting, after all. Even if he sort of wished that he could have met that other Shadow… maybe it didn’t matter. After all, people from the city were different from the ones who lived in Inaba, and that probably wasn’t only true for humans.

He thought Ai-chan might have agreed with him, but it was hard to tell. It probably didn’t matter, anyway, since she’d be leaving soon enough.

It didn’t have to bother him at all.

* * *

  
  


It was almost the end of the month, and Ken’s friends would soon be leaving. Ryotaro was sort of sorry to see them go, if only because, when they were around, the kids would almost definitely be occupied and not out causing trouble around town.

...Almost definitely. Sometimes, he had his doubts about how much order was really being kept. But no police had been called yet, so whatever happened, it was probably not his problem.

Today, Amamiya was around, and he was excitedly swapping stories with Shiomi about… something, he wasn’t sure just what it was. The sentences coming out of their mouths weren’t anything that he could understand. Ken did seem to understand it, though, at least to some extent, and was happily proffering suggestions of some kind to them, which they were clearly giving some serious thought to.

...Honestly, it was probably just some kind of game of theirs. He didn’t need to give it anywhere near as much thought as he did.

Despite being present, Aragaki was not a part of this conversation. He didn’t seem particularly lost, though. Just disinterested. “It’s almost like they’re speaking in code,” he said. “Except I’m not sure they’d have the patience to actually come up with one. But once they’ve found their own little world to go off in, they’re gonna explore it as thoroughly as possible.”

It sounded like he had a lot of experience with this sort of thing. “I’m guessing this has happened before?”

“All the time. That… I think that’s just what happens, with people like- people like them.” Aragaki took a moment to compose himself. “Sometimes you understand them, sometimes you don’t. Long as they don’t get themselves hurt, it… doesn’t matter, all that much. So long as they’re happy.”

Ryotaro had to agree that the little group in the garden seemed perfectly happy, even if their conversation was more or less unintelligible. “You… really care for them, don’t you.”

“Wouldn’t be here otherwise. It’s… Ken’s a good kid. I don’t think any of us really mind spending extra time with him, when he needs it.”

That bit, at least, had been easy to pick up, what with the entire past month. Though it… didn’t entirely escape him that his nephew’s friends had turned up to visit not long after the night when he’d run away. Right when Ken was clearly at his most upset.

He was still trying to convince himself that the timing was just a coincidence, but at this point, it was a lot harder than it had used to be. “And you think he needs it now?”

“Dunno if he ever hasn’t, really. He’s got other people here to look out for him, though, so… maybe I shouldn’t be worrying as much.” He did, in fact, sound genuinely concerned about Ken’s well-being. More than Ryotaro had heard anyone worry about him, with the exception, of course, of that night where everything had gotten out of hand.

“...How did he end up with your little group, anyway?” It was the sort of thing that maybe he should have asked sooner, except that, at the time, he’d been mostly glad that his sister’s kid had a known location at all, no matter where it was.

Aragaki shrugged. “Old club advisor was a fan of doing illegal stuff, kid wandered in without anywhere else to go… he basically handed responsibility off to us before jumping off the roof at Gekkoukan.” The story sounded vaguely familiar, but at the same time, he wasn’t looking Ryotaro in the eye. “Or. That’s what they said happened. I wasn’t there.” No explanation for this apparent absence was given. He hadn’t been fully expecting one.

It had always been clear that there was something these kids weren’t talking about, and that Ken seemed to share.

Honestly, the more he heard about the details surrounding the thing, the less he thought he wanted to know about it.

“Well. It’s nice to know someone was looking after him. I don’t know if his mother just didn’t leave any instructions for if something happened to her, or…” Really, it shouldn’t have taken as long for things to happen as they did.

Aragaki shrugged again, this time looking more uncomfortable than anything else. “Huh. Guess we’ll never know. ...I’m gonna go make sure they’re not planning arson or something.”

This was obviously some kind of excuse to end the conversation, but… maybe it didn’t matter.

After all, they’d be leaving soon enough either way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mitsuru is, of course, working on Niflheim.
> 
> I know that last conversation could have gotten more awkward, but I'm not sure how.


	82. In Which Summer Comes to an End

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Once again, SEES leaves Inaba. Once again, Ken is not happy with this.
> 
> Having other people to talk to doesn't always make things better.

Ken wished that the others didn’t have to leave. It had been a great month- not the best, far from it, but good enough- and now it was over.

“I think my uncle might like you,” He commented. “I mean… he actually thinks you’re responsible for some reason.” Admittedly, his uncle hadn’t seen the pure, unrestrained chaos that was the entirety of SEES on Yakushima, or even just the entirety of SEES in general, but the point remained that this was not the impression he would have expected them to give.

Shinjiro blinked. “Really? How’d that happen?”

That was, admittedly, a very good question. Kotone had been completely unrestrained with her budget, Akihiko had been giving self-defense courses to anyone who was by the river- and ended up getting thrown in a few times- and Aigis was… Well, she still looked like she was in high school, no matter how much she talked about her courses at the university. In addition, she and Shinjiro did both favor winter clothing.

“I’m not that bad…” Akihiko grumbled.

Kotone nodded. “Besides, he wasn’t there when we were doing irresponsible stuff!” Of course, she’d also been giving Ren various Persona recommendations in broad daylight, so Ken wasn’t sure that was entirely true. What with how this could probably be construed as child endangerment. But at least it wasn’t like anyone knew that.

“You aren’t denying irresponsibility, though…” Aigis almost sounded amused, though, like always, it was sort of hard to tell with her.

“I think there’s a bit too much evidence for that…” Ken trailed off. “D-do you really have to go so soon? I think Uncle said something about negotiating with his coworkers for a watermelon…”

“We need to get home at a reasonable time, Ken,” Kotone reminded him. “...Also, we’ve already got a lot of odd looks for Aigis not eating. We… probably don’t need any more.”

As much as it hurt to admit it, she did have a point. It was just… things seemed better, when he had people who really knew him around.

“I-I know,” He admitted. “Just… make sure to tell everyone that I’m doing fine, okay?” It… wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t just a lie, either. It was… something in-between. “And- and could you tell me once you’re back in Iwatodai?” The more contact he had with them, the better.

They agreed with him, and left on the train. He wished he could have gone home with them.

With luck, there’d at least be a watermelon with his name on it later that day.

* * *

  
  


There was, in fact, a watermelon later that day, and Ren and Teddie had both been happy to come over and help him eat it. The others had all been varying degrees of getting ready to go back to high school, but at least those two were there.

“I should probably be getting ready for school, too,” Teddie admitted. “But I don’t even know where to start. What sort of things am I supposed to need for school?”

“Pencils are normally a good place to start,” Ren suggested. “Still… you really want to go to school?”

“Yeah! It sounds like I could learn a lot there!”

Ken supposed that was something worth considering, as well as the fact that people would question what a kid their age was doing outside of school. “You sound really excited about this.”

Teddie nodded, his eyes almost shining, except that didn’t really happen even when he looked like a Shadow. “I’ll be able to learn things, and make lots of friends! Why wouldn’t I like it?”

“It’s boring.” Ren flopped back into the garden. Thankfully, he didn’t crush any of the vegetables. Ken could only imagine how unhappy Nanako would be about that. Currently, she was reminding Koromaru that it probably wouldn’t be a very good idea for him to eat watermelon.

He then thought back to the few times that he’d seen Gekkoukan in daylight. “I… think that depends a lot on the teachers you have, actually,” He stated. “The ones teaching my class are… sort of okay… but the high school my senpai went to had a lot of strange people in it.” He still wasn’t sure how so many people who were that eccentric could gather around like that, but maybe that was just something to do with how, for a decade, the school had become Tartarus.

“Really?” Nanako blinked at him. “What do you mean?”

“Well, there’s a history teacher who likes the Sengoku era a bit too much… a nurse that also sometimes teaches about… well, things we might find relevant… And there’s also this one that nobody really likes.” This probably wasn’t the time to mention how said teacher had covered up for Fuuka being stuck in Tartarus. Or how he’d somehow managed to trigger Kotone’s wrath in a way where she wasn’t satisfied with just lighting him on fire. “But I think every school has one of those.” If without a dramatically redecorated classroom.

Ren and Nanako nodded in agreement, but neither said anything about their own least-favorite teachers.

Still… this was as good of a way to end the summer as any. Even if his friends couldn’t be there.

* * *

  
  


Once the last leftover bits of watermelon were stored in the refrigerator- and would probably be breakfast the next day, if Ken was being completely honest with himself about his desire not to lose more good food to the disorganized mess within- Ken’s uncle left for something that wasn’t explained, but in that case, might not actually have been for his job.

Still, it wasn’t even completely dark yet, so maybe he’d get back at a reasonable hour. Maybe.

Ken wasn’t exactly counting on it, though.

Still, there was plenty about the house that needed cleaning, as several people had been coming in and out of it all summer, and Ken already knew that his uncle probably wouldn’t be much help- he was the top suspect for who kept leaving coffee-stained newspapers on the table- so he and Nanako were doing the job themselves, while Koromaru helped them sniff out missing things, like the TV remote.

Most of their options for removing dirt from the floor were missing, of course, but between the three of them, they could probably figure something out. Possibly by asking Naoto to come over with Garudyne.

“You know, Big Bro, your friends are really messy.”

“I’m not sure that’s it… maybe it’s just what happens with more people around in general.” It made sense. Most of his friends’ apartments were relatively neat, though some accumulated clutter a bit faster than others. The dorm, meanwhile… that had been a mess, at least once they all became comfortable enough with each other to have possessions outside of their own rooms. “With so many people around… I’m almost surprised nobody fell into the TV.”

He meant it as a joke, mostly. It had been a real worry, though. He missed the days when proximity to a television set wasn’t something he had to keep in mind when planning outings.

But Nanako nodded along as if he’d been completely serious. “That’d be bad. We’d have to get a whole new TV!” At least her concerns didn’t quite line up with his yet.

“Arf!” Koromaru sounded almost like he was laughing along.

“I mean, we could bring the one down from my room…” Ken mused. “But that one’s… not anywhere near as big as this one.” He wasn’t even sure a person could fit through the television in his room. He didn’t think he could have made it through even before his growth spurt.

“Yeah… you could probably fit a person inside of this one.” She wasn’t wrong… “But I don’t know if that’s your kind of magic.”

That was… “My kind of magic? What do you mean?” She was six and a half, he wasn’t about to go using his powers in front of her… what had she figured out?

She blinked at him. “Big Bro… bruises don’t just go away when I eat things. Big cuts don’t, either.” ...Had he seriously been forgetting to cast Diarahan before leaving the TV World? “Dad doesn’t notice, but I do. And Kotone-san makes things really warm when she’s around, and Teddie makes them cold again, and Aigis-san never eats anything, and…”

“You don’t know if any of that’s magic.” Aigis not eating wasn’t because of magic- though she did, admittedly, still have that- it was because she was a robot. Not that this was going to help his case any if he said it out loud. And it was sort of hard to dispute that Kotone was acting as Shinjiro’s personal heater when everyone in SEES knew that she was doing it.

“Koro-chan’s really warm when I hug him, too,” She continued, as if Ken hadn’t said anything. “And I saw one of Ren’s friends walk out of nothing once.”

...Seriously? She’d noticed Marie coming out of the Velvet Room? What were the chances of that?

...Okay, so they were a bit higher than usual, what with how Marie had been around a bit more often than usual during the summer, and the fact that there hadn’t exactly been school to fulfill her desire to spend time with her friends, but… still. Why was this happening?

“...Okay, yeah, Marie-san’s magic…” There really wasn’t much point in denying that. And if she’d started to figure things out herself… “And… so are the rest of us, but… it’s a secret, all right? You’re not allowed to tell anyone about it.”

Nanako blinked at him. “What about Dad?”

Ken remembered the anger that had been boiling in his gut two years ago. “...Especially not your dad. He- you can’t tell him anything about this. He can’t know about magic.” He hoped he didn’t sound too much like he was panicking.

“...All right, then,” Nanako nodded. “It’ll be our secret!”

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: ...You know, back when I was showing you around the TV World, you could have reminded me to use Diarahan after we were done. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: What brings this up? _

_ Amada Ken: So it turns out that Nanako noticed I was hurt before I started eating and then she started noticing everything else. I haven’t told her anything big yet, I’m not sure I ever will, but… It should be fine. She never mentioned it before today. She can keep a secret. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: It seems a lot like you’re trying to convince yourself of this. _

_ Amada Ken: I mean, she doesn’t know about Personas or anything. I just… I’m worried she’ll say something to my uncle, and then there’ll be questions, and… _

And he wasn’t sure how well he’d be able to lie to him. But he’d have to lie, if he wanted things to end any way that wasn't terribly.

Even with the consequences, maybe he should have hopped on that train.

But that would have made Nanako sad, and she still would have seen enough to make guesses about him being magic, so maybe it would have just caused more problems than it solved.

_ Sanada Akihiko: Has your uncle asked about what you were doing before? _

_ Amada Ken: No, but supernatural powers weren’t part of the bargain then. Or, he didn’t know they were. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: And… how old is Nanako again? _

_ Amada Ken: She’ll be seven in a couple of months. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: And how many people listened to you when you were a kid? _

This… was actually a really good point. Even if he now had to worry about Nanako eventually developing a very similar set of issues to his own.

Still… it felt strange, that, for once, he’d find this sort of thing reassuring.

_ Amada Ken: Okay, so now I’m less worried about my uncle learning too much and hating Shinjiro-san, and more about Nanako being treated how I was when I was nine, so… I’m not sure if I should be thanking you or not. _

_ Sanada Akihiko: I think she’ll be fine. She’s got you, doesn’t she? _

It was nice to know that there was someone who had faith in him.

_ Amada Ken: ...Yeah. She does. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nanako, despite being six years old, is not stupid. Particularly when Kotone laughs in the face of human limitations and Aigis exists.
> 
> Ken is making an effort to be a good big brother. Sadly, my strategy, when all else fails, is to add another layer of tension to the Dojima household, so... he's trying, at least.


	83. In Which Teddie Goes To School

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Summer vacation is over, and with that, a return to school, this time with a new student added to the mix.
> 
> This is probably not going to end in disaster.

It was early in the morning, the sun was shining, and for Teddie, today was a beary important day.

“Now, Ted, you remember where the school is, right? Ma’s not gonna get a call saying you didn’t show up because you got lost?”

Teddie nodded, clutching his bright red backpack tightly to his chest. “I know.” He and Kanji had gone over the route just the day before. “And if I leave at the right time, I could run into Kenny on the way.” Which would be another way of making sure he could navigate the human world right, when he could no longer just sniff out wherever he needed to be.

“Might have to hurry if you want that. He lives closer to it than we do.”

“I know!” Still, all the worry in the world mattered little compared to his excitement. “And I’m gonna learn a lot, and I’ll try to make friends, and…” And it wouldn’t even matter that he wasn’t human, because nobody would ever have to know.

“Right. And you have everything you need, right? Supplies, lunch…?”

“I’ve got it…” He grumbled. It was like they didn’t think he could take care of himself. He’d fended for himself in his own world for a beary long time… even if the other Shadows had never really noticed him… “I’ll be fine.”

“Look, if I didn’t worry about this, Ma would.” This was probably not wrong.

Still, all this worrying was making Teddie more anxious to get out the door. He could bearly wait already, why did they have to keep making him more excited?

“I know. But, Kanji, don’t you have to go to school, too?”

Kanji winced. “You don’t hafta go rubbing it in…” Teddie wasn’t sure why he said that. Sure, nobody else seemed quite as excited about school as he was, but that was just because they’d all gotten used to it, wasn’t it?

“Well, we should get going, then!” He cheerfully swung his bag onto his back, and took off along the street.

No matter what the others said about school being boring… He couldn’t wait.

* * *

  
  


“Class, today we have a new student.” Ren looked up from where he’d already started drowsing in his seat to see a familiar face standing at the front of the class. “This is Tatsumi Kuma.”

“Hi! It’s nice to meet all of you! You can call me Teddie!” Blue eyes scanned the classroom before landing on the Wild Card. “Oh, hi, Renren!”

“...Hello, Teddie…” He sighed. He supposed this was only to be expected when he heard that the Shadow would be coming to school, but he hadn’t expected him to end up in his class.

In the back of the class, whispers flared up. This was not unusual. There were always whispers in the back of the class. Ren thought it might have been some sort of rule or something. For once, however, he might actually have been the subject of some of them. So half a decade of relative anonymity had just gone down the drain.

It was hard to be upset with Teddie about that, though. He just seemed really happy to be there. To the point where Ren was almost surprised that, when the teacher pointed out an empty seat for the Shadow to sit in, he didn’t skip over to it.

Still. At least they didn’t sit all that close to each other. That… while it probably wouldn’t have been an utter disaster, it probably would have meant the end of his school life being peaceful.

The kid who sat in front of him turned around with a curious gaze. “Do you know him?”

“We’re… friends. I sort of helped him meet the people who ended up adopting him…” This was close enough to the truth to hold up under scrutiny, right?

At the start of the year, if someone had told him that he’d be starting the fall semester alongside a friendly Shadow who had somehow acquired a human form, he wouldn’t have believed them.

But then, he probably wouldn’t have believed them when they talked about the existence of Shadows, either. The whole year so far had been pretty unbelievable.

At the very least, he was pretty sure that he now knew what to expect. Sort of.

Sure, his expectations were that everything would fall into chaos, but with the people he now had for friends, that was as safe a bet as he could get.

* * *

  
  


Naturally, everyone in the classroom was curious about Teddie. Inaba didn’t get a lot of new people, and the few that it did were generally at least in high school. If Ken hadn’t gone with him to explore Inaba and then suddenly received the massive time sink of helping people not get murdered, Ren was pretty sure he would have become the most popular kid around just from knowing what the city was like.

Unlike Ken, Teddie did not have the advantage of knowing what the city was like, but he was still new to the town, and different from most of them, and just as excited to meet everyone else as they were curious to meet him.

Ren wondered when the whole effect was going to wear off. Even people dying tended to only cause a stir in this class for about a week, but Teddie’s enthusiasm was contagious. And with how new he still was to the world, it could be months before he got bored.

“So, where’d you come from, anyway?” One of their classmates asked.

“I dunno the name. It’s just… someplace beary far away.” It was nice to know that Teddie hadn’t decided to go out and be honest about things as he wandered into everyday human life. “And I don’t think you could go there. It’s not on any maps, anyway.”

Of course it wasn’t. He was from a different world.

Still, their classmates didn’t know that, so Ren supposed it would probably be a good idea to provide some sort of distraction.

“So, Teddie, how do you like school so far?” He asked, inwardly preparing himself for the sheer onslaught of energy that was bound to run him over.

“It’s great! I’ve been learning so much already, and it’s only the first day!” His eyes were shining so bright, they could probably be used as a light source. “And there’s so many people, too!”

This exuberance would probably die down within the next few weeks, hopefully, but Ren supposed that it was good he was having fun.

“You’re... not going to just disappear into the crowd, right?” He checked. “I think Kanji-san would worry about you if you did that.” Him and everyone else, really. There was a lot of chaos that could come from having Teddie loose in the human world, especially unsupervised.

They’d managed to avoid things getting too bad so far, but their luck had to run out eventually.

Teddie rapidly shook his head. “Don’t worry, Renren! For the first couple days, I’m just gonna stick by you and Kenny!” Okay, that was a bit more reasonable, even if it just delayed his worries to a few days or so in the future. Maybe a week, if they were lucky.

But the school would probably not be thrown into eternal winter at the start of September, and that could probably be considered some sort of victory.

Now, he just had to hope that nobody ever thought to ask the right questions…

* * *

  
  


Ken’s first day back at school had been… about as expected, actually. By now, he’d managed to blend in with the rest of the class, with most of them forgetting about his introduction entirely.

There was exactly one exception. “The people from the city who spent the break here… you’re friends with them, aren’t you?” Shu didn’t sound particularly disdainful, which was sort of weird from him.

He nodded. “They… I think they were worried about me.” This was probably the best way to explain things that didn’t involve a history he tended to avoid bringing up even to the people who knew that magic existed. “And… it was nice having them around, either way.”

He wasn’t sure if Shu was going to say anything, but he still decided to leave before he got the chance. He spotted his friends in the hall almost immediately. “Ren-san, Teddie. Over here.”

“Hey, Ken-senpai…” Ren sounded sort of tired. “Guess which class Teddie ended up in.” Suddenly, the lack of energy made perfect sense. Even when he wasn’t at the center of attention, Teddie could be a lot.

It wasn’t even all that surprising. There weren’t that many classes of students. “Has he been keeping you busy?”

“If everyone somehow stays convinced he’s like the rest of us until high school, I’ll be surprised.”

Ken wasn’t entirely sure about that. If only because that was a long time for him to learn how to act. “I’m sure it won’t be that bad… did you have fun, Teddie?”

He got an excited nod in return. “School’s really fun so far! And we get to come here every day?”

“Well… almost every day… and you’ll probably get bored eventually…” Most of the stuff they learned wasn’t exactly immediately applicable to their lives, versus just about anything to do with Personas, where picking things up straight away was sort of important to not getting your eyes clawed out by Shadows or something. “But I’m glad you’re having fun.”

It was probably better than leaving him to idle all day every day, anyway. That sort of thing could have only ended in disaster.

Teddie glanced towards the door. “Can we leave, now? I want to tell Kanji about how my day went!”

...Honestly, it was probably better than having him go careening off in search of ice cream or something. “Sure. We can probably pick up some snacks on the way. What do you think, Ren-san?”

“...Steak skewers sound nice.”

And that, basically, was their plans decided. If the next few days went like this… Ken thought that maybe things would turn out alright, even if the rest of his friends weren’t there. Sure, he still didn’t have any idea how to make things better, but… this was okay.

Or, at least, it was okay so long as Teddie didn’t eat too much candy and become an inescapable source of energy. But that was probably always going to be a risk, so he decided not to count it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we have Teddie learning a bit more about how to live a relatively normal life. So far, he seems to be having fun with it.


	84. In Which Discipline Is Enacted

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shu gets himself in trouble. Ren wants to know why.
> 
> Ken is only tangentially involved in any of it.

Within a week of the new semester starting, Nakajima Shu was suspended for cheating.

Ren hadn’t witnessed the event personally, having been in his own class at the time, but word spread quickly. After all, Shu was one of the best students in his year, even if his own attitude didn’t make him very popular.

Despite this, Ken, who was in Shu’s class, didn’t have much to say about the situation at all.

Or, not directly, anyway. There were plenty of whispers around that Shu had cheated because he was jealous of Ken’s grades. Ren wouldn’t have been overly surprised if that was the case, but it felt wrong to just dismiss it like that.

“I didn’t realize he disliked me that much,” Ken admitted. “I mean, I knew we didn’t really get along but… it feels like it couldn’t have been just that, you know?”

That was the feeling he got, as well. That there had to be something more to it. If only because, if it were just that, he probably wouldn’t have gotten caught cheating at the very start of the semester. It felt like the sort of thing that would take a while to happen.

“Maybe… I could ask him,” He found himself suggesting. “We’re… I don’t know if friends is the right word for it, but… we talk. Sometimes.” They had a bond, which was fairly strong, but he’d still never suspected that something like this could happen. “Maybe we could visit him this afternoon?”

“That would mean introducing him to Teddie.” Right. It wasn’t that they didn’t like the bear, he could just be a bit much, especially for people who weren’t used to him.

It probably went without saying that most of the human world hadn’t yet gotten the chance to get used to him.

“...I suppose it can wait a bit. Or I can go by myself.” The worst that could happen was that he ran into Shu’s mother, who was… not overtly unpleasant, but something about her just grated at him, and he couldn’t explain why.

Maybe that was where Shu got it from. He wasn’t really the most agreeable person, either. He was just easier to get along with because he didn’t carry the same sense of superiority from being an adult among children.

At least, not yet. Ren really wasn’t looking forward to high school, even if that would be years in the future. Hopefully, he would have mellowed out by then.

“You’ll tell me if it’s something I can help with, right?” Ken asked. “I just… kind of feel bad that this happened at all.”

Ren wasn’t sure if there was anyone who didn’t. That just made it even easier to agree.

* * *

  
  


Explaining to Teddie why Ren wasn’t getting steak skewers with them that day was easier than Ken had imagined it would be.

“I see. So everyone’s talking about one of Renren’s friends.” Teddie took another bite of his steak skewer. “Do you think he’ll want to talk about it?”

Honestly? Not really. Shu was never the most open person, even to those who obviously posed no sort of threat to his previously spotless record. It wasn’t quite as bad as some of the things that Ken had been through, but there was nothing like having their world flipped around to shake up someone’s sense of things.

“I guess… it’d feel wrong if he didn’t try. It might be a Wild Card thing. Kotone-san and Minato-san are the same way, sometimes.” After he’d started tipping over the dominos that made the second half of fifth grade so terrible, Kotone had been one of the people who put in the most effort to put him back on his feet after that, though in hindsight she’d had fewer reasons to than most of the people he’d known. “Even when it doesn’t always make sense.”

“That makes sense. They all seem like nice people.” He’d clearly never seen Minato in a position where the right choice was telling somebody no. Or being generally unhelpful to law enforcement. But then, Minato hadn’t been around Inaba nearly as long as Ren or Kotone. So it made sense that Teddie wouldn’t have fully caught on to his less positive traits yet.

But even still… it wasn’t like Minato didn’t try to help. Sometimes. He just wasn’t very good at it. “I mean… they all have a lot of friends for a reason.” Even if Ren didn’t venture all that far out from his team, that was still a lot of people.

But then, Ken knew more Persona Users than he would have ever believed existed, back in elementary school, so maybe it was all just a matter of perspective.

“It must be nice, to have as many friends as they do,” Teddie commented. “But… how do they have time for all of them?”

That was a question for the ages. No matter how much time Ken spent around Kotone, the vagaries of her schedule were something he could never understand. And as for Minato… for the entire first year he’d been in Iwatodai, nobody ever had any idea what Minato was doing.

They kept a better eye on him now, after the Valentine’s Day Disaster, but a lot of the way he organized his time remained a mystery. All things considered, that was probably for the best.

“I’m not sure, but… I don’t think that’s something people like us are meant to know. If we tried to copy it… I don’t think it’d go well.” The best that could possibly result from that was a caffeine addiction. Something about the Wild Cards just made things like human limitations go out the window.

It probably wasn’t something Teddie could safely copy, either. He was human enough. And also, Kanji wouldn’t be happy if Ken started teaching him bad habits.

Besides, time spent pondering those possibilities was time spent not eating his steak skewer.

* * *

  
  


“Mom’s not going to be happy if she sees you here,” Shu warned Ren when he arrived.

Ren shrugged. Most of the things he did, adults wouldn’t really be happy to hear about. This was just another thing to add to the pile. “That’s fine. She’s not here right now, is she? And I’ll be gone by the time she gets back.”

Alternatively, he could always climb out of the window. He’d learned how to do that at the awkward age when he couldn't quite reach the lock on the front door, but could definitely reach the window by one of the chairs, at which point his parents no longer had full control over his coming and going.

This had, admittedly, gotten him locked out of his own house more than once, but Inaba had seemed so big back then, he’d never thought he’d eventually get bored from having seen it all.

“But if she does come back early, she’ll tell your parents you were here, and you’ll get in trouble.”

That was probably being a bit optimistic. That would require Ren’s parents to answer their phones for any reason aside from work, or maybe him being in the hospital. “You know… if we fight about this, I’ll be around longer than if we just talk. So if you don’t want me getting in trouble, you should just tell me what I want to know.”

Shu crossed his arms, clearly low on patience for dealing with this. “...You're going to ask about the suspension, aren’t you?”

It was sort of the most interesting topic at the moment that wasn’t murder. “It’s… everyone says it’s because you were jealous of Ken-senpai.” It didn’t even feel like that much of a stretch. Shu’s general dislike for Ken wasn’t exactly a secret, or anything.

“And?”

“...I don’t believe them. Or… I don’t think that’s the only reason.” He couldn’t explain how he felt that, whether it was the Wild Card or something else, but there had to be more to this thing than just simple envy. “So… I want to hear what you have to say.”

The way Shu looked at him, it was as if this was the first time anyone had asked him to talk about why he did things. “Well… Mom wants me to- to be the best. She keeps talking about how smart I am, and… Amada’s just as good as me.” That felt almost like a change of subject.

“Just because Ken-senpai’s smart doesn’t mean you aren’t, too,” Ren pointed out. “It’s not like there’s a limited amount of smarts per classroom, or something…” Really, how would something like that even work?

“Yeah, but… she says I’m smart enough to do better. I- I should be doing better, but…”

Ren took a closer look at him. “...Senpai, did you relax at all during the break? Or were you just studying all the time?”

“I… was studying. But it’s- I’m not as smart as Mom thinks I am. Though, she… might have figured that out by now...” He shook his head. “She’ll probably be home in just a few minutes. You should leave before she gets here.”

It felt a lot like no real progress had been made. But how was Ren supposed to fix something like this? It was all kind of foreign to him…

But at least he had the answers he’d been looking for. For now, that would have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In general, a lot of the changes made to Social Links are based in the fact that the characters involved give them a very different context. In Shu's case, this is not really working to his advantage at the moment.


	85. In Which Yasogami High Goes On A Trip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They get on their way, anyway. They don't do a lot in Iwatodai proper.

“Iwa...todai?” Teddie sat at the edge of his seat and watched Kanji pack for his school trip. “That’s the place Kenny’s from, right?”

“...Yeah, think so.” Kanji continued with his last-minute packing. “Didn’t look at the schedule too close, but maybe we’ll see some of his friends while we’re there.”

That sounded nice. Teddie almost wished he could go, too, but he still got lost sometimes in Inaba. A big city like that? He’d lose his way in under a minute!

“What’ll you do if you see them?”

“I dunno… just say hello, I guess. Might be able to get away long enough to ask for some sort of advice…” That would be nice. Teddie knew a lot about his own world, but there was still a lot about Bearsonas and Shadows that he’d still never heard about.

He didn’t really understand most of it- words that were too complicated made his head hurt- but it seemed like it would all be important to learn, so he’d keep trying his beary hardest!

“Just make sure you have fun all right! And tell me and Kenny everything! Renren, too!’

“I will, I promise.” Kanji finally got around to zipping up his bag. “And the three of you will be good while the rest of us are gone, right? No running back to the Void Quest or whatever?”

“Nana-chan said she’d teach us how to garden!” It was too bad he didn’t think he’d have the time to start his own. Those veggies were tasty.

...He was also sort of worried he’d accidentally freeze the plants. While Kenny told him it probably wouldn’t be an issue, that didn’t mean there wasn’t a chance.

Besides. The most important thing was that, while Teddie was in the garden, he’d have access to a large supply of snacks, so long as none of the veggies were currently needed for anything.

All things considered, he thought he’d be pretty well off.

* * *

  
  


Iwatodai was two hours away from Inaba by train.

This fact was well known to the Persona Users who lived in Inaba, as one of their number was very much attached to this city. They’d known, from the moment that the school trip was announced, that they were in for a long travel time.

This did not make the wait any easier, particularly when the rest of their classes were also there making a nuisance of themselves on public transportation.

“This is still better than the years when the school would run out of budget and have to just book the entire inn,” Yukiko cheerfully opined. “This way, we actually get to see outside of Inaba.”

“Yeah, and I haven’t been to Iwatodai in a while, so it’ll be pretty new even for me,” Rise agreed.

Naoto, who had eventually chosen to enroll in Yasogami High mainly so she had a reason to remain in Inaba, and was already starting to regret it, glanced at her. “You’ve been to Iwatodai before?”

“Yeah, I was supposed to have a concert… huh… almost exactly two years ago… but then something happened with the power, and then it got canceled.” She blinked, and then extracted her phone from her pocket. “Hold on a moment, I have to ask Ken-kun something.”

“Now?” Kanji asked, but Rise was already typing away. Naoto supposed she had plenty of reason to, even if the exact logic took a bit of questioning.

Satonaka Chie, who was sitting with them mainly because she was friends with Yukiko, just seemed confused. “Why would Ken-kun know what happened? Wouldn’t have been ten?”

“Eleven, actually,” Rise replied. “And he does actually know. It was a… wiring issue. Power surge.” The look on her face was all that Naoto needed to understand that, whatever the problem with the wiring had been, if it was the wiring, Shadows- or, at least, a sufficient quantity of Zio magic- had definitely been involved.

Ordinarily, she’d remark on how this was an incredible coincidence, but Chie was nearby, and honestly, it was an incredible coincidence that their team had ever formed in the first place. Certainly, discovering that you could climb through a TV wasn’t something that would just happen under most circumstances.

Chie still seemed a bit confused by how a thirteen-year-old would know this- and it was hard to blame her, Naoto wouldn’t have believed it herself if she weren’t a Persona User- but she didn’t ask any more questions, so it probably wasn’t that important.

They were on the way to Iwatodai. Compared to that, some minor curiosity really didn’t matter.

* * *

  
  


Compared to Inaba, Iwatodai was… busy. The buildings were larger, the crowds were louder, and everything seemed to have a certain… sheen to it.

It was easy to see why Ken had had such a hard time adjusting. The difference between the two locations was like night and day. Yukiko wasn’t really sure what to think of it. It was just… really far from what she was used to.

“Oh, and ignore the… colors... in Ekoda-sensei’s classroom,” Gekkoukan’s Student Council President spoke up. “There was an incident last year, and… we never figured out who did it, or how to clean it up. Admittedly, I’m not sure how much my predecessor was trying…” She trailed off, as if suddenly realizing she was in front of a large number of students from a school far away.

It was nice to know that even big, fancy schools in the city could apparently have strange things happen like that, even if a spot of extra color was a bit less concerning than the existence of the Yasogami High Occult Club, which had recently turned to worshipping the Midnight Channel.

Yukiko wasn’t entirely sure why none of the teachers were doing anything about the fledgling cult, but it was hard to deny that it was definitely an interesting part of life.

Still… it was just a school, and there was an entire city waiting to be explored. So many experiences that simply wouldn’t happen in Inaba.

The time for free exploration couldn’t arrive soon enough.

* * *

  
  


Back in Inaba, a group of kids were eating lunch gathered around a desk. “They’re going to be in Iwatodai right now?” Ren repeated, again cursing his lack of a phone and how it made it harder for him to stay in the loop. “Ken-senpai, do your friends know about this?”

“I haven’t told them yet,” Ken replied. “Do you think I should? Of course, they might have found out some other way already… Minato-san’s really good at gathering information. It’s kind of scary.”

“They might want to see everyone,” Teddie pointed out.

“That doesn’t make this an easier decision…” Ren supposed he had a point. There were a lot of pros and cons to unleashing SEES on an unsuspecting group of students.

While it wouldn’t surprise him to hear that their group had expected such a thing to happen as soon as they learned about their destination, the rest of their classes might not have deserved that. “You don’t exactly have a long time to think it over.”

“I know, but this isn’t exactly… it’s not a matter of life and death.” It probably said something that this was apparently the main criteria here. “So if I don’t get around to it, it won’t be the end of the world, or anything. Just… a missed opportunity.”

From the look on Teddie’s face, he clearly felt that missed opportunities were something close to as bad as the end of the world. “But why not call them?”

“Because the high school students didn’t sign up for dealing with Ken-senpai’s friends,” Ren sighed. “Like, they could be a lot worse, but… they aren’t exactly what I think of when I try to picture normal people.” Honestly, his picture of what normal people looked like started as far away from any Persona Users as possible. Even ignoring their magical powers, there was usually something that seemed just a bit different about their personalities, like having the ability to draw power from them caused them to go on full display at the drop of a hat.

He’d ask Lavenza about it, but he was honestly sort of scared of what the answer would be.

Still, it was less likely to get them noticed than the ability to heal from eating food, or being able to step through the televisions, or even the ludicrous amount of pocket money they carried, so it was probably going to be just fine.

“Right,” Ken nodded. “They’re like family, but I know they can get a little much. Especially Minato-san and Kotone-san. Though that’s probably a Wild Card thing…”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Ren asked.

“Ren-san. You have gotten into shouting matches with Shadows over Tarukaja.”

“It only lasted as long as it did because you didn’t help me sooner…” And he was going to maintain that position for as long as he could possibly get away with it.

Besides, that fight had been months ago. Why was it being brought up again now?

“You could have just actually fought it… but we won either way, so I guess it doesn’t matter.”

“Well, the people here can handle Renren,” Teddie pointed out. “So they should also be able to handle Koto-chan.”

“Yeah…” Ken brought out his phone. Ren silently sent his condolences to the students of Yasogami High. “I guess they can.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's just hope Kotone can be subtle for once... She couldn't manage it back in February, but...


	86. In Which Inaba Is A Nexus of Bad Decisions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so it's always sort of like that, but really. Several poor choices have been made.

_ Amada Ken: I’m probably going to regret telling you this, but you know Yasogami High’s on their school trip right now? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: I guess it is that time of year. Why are you mentioning it? _

_ Amada Ken: Apparently they’re going to Iwatodai? _

_ Shiomi Kotone: ...That does explain why Fushimi-chan wanted Mitsuru-senpai’s help with something. She always was the best person I know at making speeches. _

_ Amada Ken: Please don’t use this information to break anything or anyone important. And don’t have the others do it, either. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: If you didn’t want me to have this information, why are you telling me? _

_ Amada Ken: Shinjiro-san has his phone turned off, I know better than to interrupt Minato-san in the middle of his lunch break, and I don’t trust Junpei-san with this information at all. _

_ Shiomi Kotone: But Junpei would love to meet all your friends! _

_ Amada Ken: That’s exactly why I don’t trust him. _

* * *

  
  


Sometimes, it was questionable whether Yasogami High had any budget at all, or bothered supervising their staff whatsoever. Hand puppets and sarcophagi ran rampant, they were still down a philosophy teacher, and of course there was the fact that the PE coach was also teaching English. And that was just in the second year.

The first year wasn’t much better. But there was no denying that it was better, and that they should have known better than to entrust finding lodgings to Kashiwagi.

“I’ve done some… reading ahead on the lodgings that Yukiko-senpai’s teacher has acquired for us,” Naoto told Kanji and Rise, quietly. “The results I got were… concerning.”

“Is it really that bad, though?” Rise asked, leaning over the seat of her desk.

“It appears to be located in the red light district.”

She shrugged. “Well, still less personal embarrassment than the strip club.”

While Naoto had a pretty good idea of what she was referring to, this probably wasn’t the time to bring that up.

“Yeah, I’ve had it more mortifying,” Kanji agreed. “This time I might not even end up with heat stroke.” ...This was probably going to be her in just a few months’ time. She wasn’t sure it was possible to be terrified enough of the possibility.

“Could the two of you please take this a bit more seriously?” She complained.

“If I take it too seriously, I get flashbacks to almost getting poisoned by a snake, or nearly obliterated by Shadow Rise’s… cannon… thing.”

“Yeah, I don’t know where that came from, either,” Rise agreed. “I don’t even fight, and my Shadow just has this massive cannon that Teddie just… blew up at the cost of becoming as flat as a pancake.” That was a very vivid mental image, even without knowing what, exactly, Rise’s Shadow had looked like. It wasn’t a pretty picture.

“All right…” Naoto sighed, again wishing that she hadn’t made the poor decision of climbing through a television after watching a ragtag group of misfits running through a store with weapons. “Still… I can’t help but worry about the rest of the class. They don’t exactly have your…” She struggled to say the word, “...experience.”

“Wouldn’t want them to have it, either,” Kanji admitted. “What can we do, though? Kashiwagi only set up the one place for us, right?”

Rise sighed. “I wonder what the press would think if they could see me now…”

That would be quite the scandal. Naoto supposed that Rise’s stepping away from the spotlight had clearly been a good thing, particularly in this situation.

“Well, I know what I’d be seeing on the tabloids for the next month or so…” Kanji sighed. “Did no one thing to make sure this wouldn’t be happening?”

“Apparently not. It’s enough to make you feel bad for Yukiko-senpai, being in that homeroom class.” Really, though, Kashiwagi was, as far as Naoto could tell, a mess of legal trouble just waiting to happen to Yasogami High. The kind that stayed employed mostly because they couldn’t afford to hire anyone else.

“And I guess there’s no getting away…” Rise groaned. “I mean, there’s consequences for finding somewhere else to sleep, right?”

Naoto nodded. “I believe the list starts with suspension and just becomes more dire from there.”

Throughout their conversation, the clock kept ticking away, bringing them ever closer to their doom. After all, there really didn’t seem to be anything they could do.

Naoto really, really wished she’d thought to enroll in any school other than Yasogami.

* * *

  
  


“I sort of feel like I made a mistake earlier today,” Ken admitted, kicking a pebble at the side of the road.

Ren glanced at him. “You mean, when you texted Kotone-san earlier?”

“Right. Because I know she can be a bit much, and Yasogami isn’t exactly prepared for her.” He heaved out a sigh. “But then, she always seems to know where everyone is, so maybe she’d have figured it out on her own, and it... doesn’t even matter.”

Ren wasn’t entirely sure of that, if only because Arsene only seemed to guide him to the sides of people he had bonded with, or could form a bond with, not that the numbers of either were all that high. But Ken still seemed to believe it, and that was really what mattered.

“She might not do anything,” He pointed out, though the words rang empty as he said them.

Ken crossed his arms. “Are you saying you’d do nothing, in that situation?”

“I don’t know. I’m not Kotone-san.” And honestly, with the intensity she burned with, that was probably a good thing. He’d be burned out by the end of the day. “I’m not sure how she does things.”

“I’m not sure anyone does.” Ken paused. “...Actually, I’m not sure Kotone-san does, either.”

That… sounded about right. “She was one of the leaders of your old group, right?” Ren checked.

“Right. Her, Minato-san, and Mitsuru-san were all in charge of certain things. Or they took charge at different times, like a… rotation, sort of. And they never outright said who was leading at a time, but we all just kind of knew, and I never took Revival Beads from the pile when it was Minato-san’s turn to handle supplies.” That was… certainly a change of subject.

“Was that… a big problem?”

Ken glanced to the side. “Well… I didn’t actually need them, most of the time. Since I had Recarm, and Samarecarm, and stuff. But I… couldn’t exactly just summon Kala-Nemi in a crowded hospital room.” All right, that sounded fair. “But Minato-san didn’t like me taking them, since they… weren’t exactly working. Shinjiro-san just… didn't wake up. Not until we finally got the Dark Hour to go away. And then it took him another month to remember everyone, but...” He shook his head. “...Well, most of us were a bit too busy to visit him, anyway. Even me.”

Most of them. That meant there were exceptions. Ren thought he might have even known who they were. “But not Akihiko-san and Kotone-san, right?” When they’d visited, the three of them were almost inseparable.

“Of course not. They went to see him the first chance they got.” The way Ken said it, it was as if he felt it should have been obvious. It probably was. “I sort of wish I’d had the time, too, but… what was I even supposed to say? It was weird even with Kotone-san helping me. I don’t know if I could have done it on my own.”

Ren thought Ken just needed a bit more faith in himself. Even if he stumbled over his words sometimes, he still always managed to get to his point eventually.

“I think… you could have. You would have just… needed more time.” That seemed to be the answer to a lot of things. “I… don’t think you would have had any problems, if it happened now.”

“But it happened nearly two years ago.” That was, admittedly, a very good point. “And even if I wanted to bring it up again, it… might not be the best idea, while I’m living here. I mean, Uncle doesn’t really talk about Mom at all, but… she was still his sister, you know? I don’t think it’s a good idea to bring it up where he could hear about it. I… I think he cares that much, at least.”

“But you’re not sure?” That… Ren didn’t think that was a good sign, even if he didn’t exactly have room to talk when it came to the people who were supposed to be taking care of him not doing so.

“I won’t know if I don’t try. And if I’m right, it could cause problems for Shinjiro-san. So I shouldn’t try. I… I don’t want to have to choose between them.”

He wasn’t sure why. It sounded sort of like Ken had already made his choice.

But he didn’t say anything, and so the moment passed without quite getting anywhere. Ken glanced his way. “Should we make sure Teddie hasn’t challenged anyone else to an ice cream eating contest? They might not get he has an unfair advantage…”

“That’s… probably a good idea.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was probably a smart move, on Ken's part, not to trust Junpei.
> 
> It was probably not a smart move, on Naoto's part, to enroll in Yasogami.
> 
> When you think about it, Kashiwagi's attitude is probably a lawsuit just waiting to happen.


	87. In Which The Trip Falls Into Disaster

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Admittedly, the trip was always a disaster. But it's getting worse. There are no signs of things improving.

This school trip was bringing up a lot of questions. Things like ‘who let Kashiwagi book the hotel’ or ‘why is nobody questioning the group of teenagers parading through the red light district.’ Naoto wasn’t sure of the answer to any of them, but so far, she wasn’t really enjoying herself. This whole trip had just brought up question after question, most of which being when would be the time to start asserting her boundaries.

She was starting to get the impression that the time she’d been waiting for had passed long before the school trip actually got into the city. At the very least, it was almost certainly too late for her dignity.

“You know, this could be a lot worse,” Rise stated, sitting down at the edge of their bed. Singular. This had never shown signs of being the most fun trip in the world, but all it was really doing was getting worse from there, one miserable step at a time.

“How so?”

“You could have just let the school think you were a boy, and ended up with Kanji-kun or something.” Okay, yes, that might have presented an issue. It would have ended in, at the very least, mortal embarrassment. Especially on Kanji’s part. Naoto had accidentally placed herself in enough potentially compromising situations, at this point, to be entirely too used to it.

Her phone buzzed, which was probably as good of an excuse to leave this conversation behind as anything else.

_ Amada Ken: I just wanted to check in. Is everything going okay with you guys? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: Define ok. _

_ Amada Ken: ...That bad? Has Kotone-san gotten to you? _

_ Shirogane Naoto: Shiomi-san hasn’t appeared at all. This is because of the school’s actions. _

_ Amada Ken: ...I’m going to tell Teddie and Ren-san that things are going as well as can be expected. _

_ Shirogane Naoto: That’s probably for the best. _

It wasn’t even a lie, if she thought about it. Sure, it was mostly true due to her expectations having burrowed into the earth at some point and never reemerged, but that was besides the point.

Naoto glanced at Rise. “If you want someone to complain to, I get the feeling that Ken-kun would be up for it at the moment.”

“Yeah, but he doesn’t go to our school, so he might not really get it. Unless he knows where all the colors in that one classroom come from...”

“If the people at the school itself don’t know, I find it doubtful that he’d have much more of an idea.” Unless one of SEES had done it, of course, and they were the type to brag about their victories. But that probably wasn’t worth bringing up at the moment.

Maybe, if she left it as a mystery, it would be more interesting.

* * *

  
  


“So they’re having fun?” Teddie asked, tilting his head to the side.

“I wouldn’t go that far…” Ken wasn’t sure what was up with the high schools his friends went to, but he was sure, at this point, that none of them were altogether normal.

“But you said things were going well!” And of course that was what he'd fixated on.

“He said ‘as well as can be expected,’” Ren pointed out, looking less than impressed. “We don’t… really know how much they expected. Maybe their school’s terrible.”

If it were, that was probably a bad sign for Ren and Teddie’s futures, with how few choices there were for high schools in the area. Ken knew he had a few more options, with his immediate connections in Iwatodai, but there was a nonzero chance he’d be stuck in Inaba until he graduated, no matter how much he hoped he wouldn’t be.

“I guess we’ll all find out in a few years,” He said, pushing that thought out of mind. “...Well, Nanako won’t be for a while after, but…”

“I can wait,” She said, placing a glass of water on the table. “Do you think Dad will get here before the food does?”

“He hasn’t called to say either way, but…” But that didn’t necessarily mean anything. Sometimes a message was sent home with Adachi- never mind that, if Adachi had spare time, he could have it, too- but advance notice was one of the things that this household really lacked.

At least they wouldn’t have to worry about not having food for him if he did get back early. Even when delivered, Aiya’s served large enough portions that they probably didn’t strictly need to all get their own meals.

But then, three out of four of them fought Shadows semi-regularly, which meant access to a lot of pocket money. If there was ever a time to splurge, it was when most of them were helping each other study.

Nanako was doing less studying and more providing moral support, but that was important, too.

“...I know. He still might not be here.” She looked back up at them. “But that does mean we can talk about stuff he’s not supposed to know about, right?”

Ren and Teddie both blinked at Ken. He sighed, “I haven’t told her very much, but she’s figured out that we aren’t entirely normal. Teddie, you’re… keeping things colder than you probably need to.” In hindsight, it was always a good idea to worry about someone who had the power of temperature control. They tended to use it unconsciously.

“I am?” The Shadow blinked, as if the thought had never occurred to him before. It probably hadn’t. Thinking ahead wasn’t really his thing.

“Yeah, but… it’s not so much most people would notice it? Just… try and be a bit more careful.”

Teddie nodded, seriously, as if he were committing Ken’s words to memory. “So… when will the food get here?”

* * *

  
  


The lack of appearances made by Shiomi Kotone the day before could apparently be explained by her waiting for the Yasogami students to actually have free time. How she’d acquired a copy of their schedule, Naoto wasn’t sure, but she seemed to be making good use of it.

This time, she was accompanied by a familiar-looking girl with brown hair, and a boy wearing a baseball cap. “So this is Ken’s new team?” The boy asked, looking them over.

“Well, not all of it,” Kotone said. “There’s also a couple of kids his age. One of them’s like me, and the other one’s a Shadow.” Was this the sort of thing they were meant to be talking about in public?

“A Shadow?” The girl blinked. “You mean like-?”

“Sort of, but he has a Persona, he’s less fatalistic… actually, the more I think about it, they’re barely anything alike, at least… at least how you knew him. Minato-kun and I… might think a bit differently.” She shook her head. “Anyway. Everyone, this is Iori Junpei, and this is Takeba Yukari. They’ve been my best friends ever since I came to town.”

Takeba Yukari… as in that Takeba Yukari? The actress? It sort of made sense that there were multiple Persona Users in Inaba with some amount of fame- just who was at risk seemed to be caused by them appearing on television, for the most part- but the group in Iwatodai had no such excuse.

“It’s nice to meet you both.” In the absence of the children who usually ran the show, Yukiko ended up taking the lead. This probably wouldn’t end up with any more things being lit on fire than there needed to be, unlike if, say, Rise, were to take over, but Naoto was aware that none of the team were entirely suited for leadership. They just did the best they could with what they had. “I’m… glad you took care of Ken-kun, before he found his way to us.”

“It feels sort of like we should be thanking you,” Yukari admitted. “I mean, when Ken-kun left, we were all worried about him. He’s never been good at making friends his age, and… we were sort of worried that he’d end up not having anybody.”

It seemed like a reasonable concern. Naoto didn’t think Ken had ever mentioned having friends that weren’t Persona Users. In all honesty, she wasn’t certain that he had any.

“You should have a bit more faith in him,” Rise spoke up. “I mean… I’m not sure if he knew Ren-kun had a Persona when they met, and they get along fine… of course, Ren-kun doesn’t have a lot of friends, either, but…”

Kanji nodded. “Yeah. And even before I got my Persona, he liked to spend time with me.”

“Of course he did,” Kotone-san stated. “You sort of remind me of Shinji, and Ken-kun… he’s been close to him since…” She trailed off. “...Well, that doesn’t matter anymore. He looks up to him, is the important thing.”

That was sort of strange for Naoto to think about, knowing what she did, but it was definitely a thing supported by all the evidence she’d been able to collect so far. No matter how odd it might have been, there was no denying that the two of them shared some sort of bond.

Kanji shifted from side to side. “Yeah, but… I dunno why that has to carry over to me…”

“That’s just because he’s a good kid,” Rise said. “Anyway, you guys know where the fun places in the city are, right? There’s a club that owes me a favor since I was going to have a concert there before things happened, but if you know anywhere else…” What was she getting them into?

Whatever it was, Naoto got the feeling it could only end in disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, unless she got her own room in canon, there is no way that Naoto could have been anywhere near comfortable on that trip no matter how she ended up being sorted. Not that anyone was going to be particularly comfortable, but there are levels of awkwardness and this one would probably be pretty far up there.
> 
> Sometimes I feel sad that my laptop's keyboard doesn't have capslock because then I would be able to comfortably write Naoto's canonical... texting style... but I don't want to kill my conveniently-located Shift key any faster than I already am. It's probably for the best.
> 
> Those three are having fun and not getting into any sort of trouble, which is probably more than you can say for anyone else.


	88. In Which An Interesting Night Is Had

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Plenty of things are explained, some of them too late to be as helpful as they could be.

Yukiko wasn’t a person who paid much attention to celebrities, but even she recognized the significance of walking into a building with Risette, the Detective Prince, and Feather Pink. All they needed was Kirijo Mitsuru, and the collection of Persona Users with more fame or money than they needed would be complete, unless there was another group somewhere she didn’t know about.

The fact that they were going to a specific place because the management owed one of them a favor wasn’t lost on her either. It was just… kind of surreal. Thanks to her family’s business, she was kind of used to being the most locally famous person in the room.

“Is it really all right for us to be here?” She asked. So many lights of different colors.

“Should be,” Kotone said. “They stopped serving alcohol here a bit before we graduated.”

“Not that it ever stopped you from sneaking in before…” Yukari pointed out.

“Yeah, but it’s not like I ever drank anything. Minato-kun didn’t, either, and he’s…” She paused, as though she were thinking of a good word. “...Daring.”

“Koto-tan, that word describes you pretty well, too,” Junpei said. “What do you kids think?” Yukiko wasn’t sure why he was calling them kids when he was just a few years older than them.

“Shiomi-san is certainly willing to take risks,” Naoto agreed. “...Not that I can say I’m any different.” Probably not, after how she’d ended up being part of the team.

“Yeah, most people don’t just get the idea to climb through television sets.” Yukiko didn’t think that Kanji’s words were what Naoto had wanted to hear, no matter how true they were. “I still don’t even know how the kids got around to it.”

“Ken-kun never really mentioned that part…” Kotone admitted. “If you just listened to what he says, it’s just that he and Ren-kun found their way there one day, except he’s not exactly a person to just poke at television screens. Otherwise, we’d have found that world while he was still living here.”

“...Should we be talking about that sort of thing here?” Yukiko asked.

“It’s fine, the people here know me. I mean, they don’t know everything, but…”

Yukari rolled her eyes. “They figured out that she was incomprehensible and just stopped bothering to listen in.”

“Yukari, you weren’t supposed to tell them that part!”

At this point, Yukiko was less wary of the fact that they were now in a club, and more about their companions. They were… certainly a lively bunch.

Junpei sighed. “Can we just find someplace to sit already?”

“I’ll handle it,” Rise said, walking away to talk with someone. Yukiko hoped it wouldn’t be too extravagant…

Sure, she’d already privately resolved to never tell Ken, Ren, Teddie, or her family anything about this night, for a number of reasons, but it was about the principle of the thing.

* * *

  
  


Ken got the sudden feeling that his friends were doing something interesting without him. He ignored this feeling, as it happened often enough to leave him sort of numb to it, and also the sort of interesting situations that the others got into more often than not tended to be something that he wanted no part of.

Besides, he had more important things to worry about. “Hey, Big Bro?”

“What is it, Nanako?” His uncle still had yet to come home from work, as per usual.

“Since Dad’s not here… could you tell me a bit about magic?”

“Well…” It was a question he should have expected to have to answer eventually. “Do you mean my sort of magic, or Teddie’s, or… there’s a lot of different kinds of magic.” Sure, they all came from the same source, but she didn’t know that yet.

“I dunno. Just… maybe start with yours or Koro-chan’s?” She suggested.

Koromaru padded up to her. “Arf!” Nanako obligingly sat down to pet him.

“Well, since you’re busy with him for the moment… let’s start with Koromaru. He’s able to see really well at night, and he can also make himself warmer. He also heals from eating things, just like everyone else with magic.” If he stuck to just the subtler things that she was most likely to recognize, maybe she wouldn’t notice anything else to point to just how far their powers went.

“He is really warm… You’re real lucky, Big Bro. I bet you don’t even need a blanket.”

“Not at this time of year… if he feels like staying on my bed, anyway. He’s really comfortable anywhere…” That was probably a benefit of having an insulating coat of fur between himself and the ground, if he thought about it. “It’s still better to have blankets in winter, though.” Koromaru also wasn’t as practiced at manipulating his own body temperature as Kotone, who could go both directions and had spent the past year and a half as Shinjiro’s personal heater, but that part probably didn’t need mentioning. “And it’s nicer for Koromaru.”

Nanako nodded along, a serious look on her face that said she was committing Ken’s words to memory. “And what can you do?”

This was a bit more difficult. Ken had a longer list of powers than any non-Wild Card that he knew save for Naoto, and they were, for the most part, definitely the more esoteric type. Even Kala-Nemi’s strong instincts, something that most other Persona Users had some form of, were incredibly difficult to explain without bringing up the name Kala-Nemi.

Still, that was no reason not to try. “Well, I’ve… got a good sense for people.” Hopefully, Nanako wouldn’t ask him to explain how that was magic. “And… bright lights don’t bother me.” Sure, he wasn’t about to try staring directly at the sun anytime soon, but he hadn’t had to worry about glare since he’d still had Nemesis. “I can also make static- you know, when your hair gets all frizzy- but I shock myself as much as I do anything else, so…” He wasn’t even going to try and explain his psychokinesis, especially when, without summoning his Persona, the most he could do was lift his eraser from his desk into his nearby hand.

Mitsuru had recommended that he practice until he could call his Evoker to himself, but he’d never gotten around to it, and hopefully now he’d never need it, particularly since he didn’t even have an Evoker at the moment. Either way, he wasn’t about to go around manipulating objects with his mind. Therefore, Nanako didn’t need to hear about it.

He wasn’t going to touch the healing, either. If he needed to use those powers around Nanako, then something had already gone horribly wrong, and he’d have to tell her everything anyway. Hopefully, he’d never have reason to need healing around his family.

“You can hurt yourself with it?”

“If I’m not careful… but just about anyone could hurt people with their powers if they weren’t careful about it.” Mitsuru could give someone frostbite by touching them, Koromaru could heat himself up enough to cook a person… it was just that he didn’t have a personal immunity to lightning. “That’s why it’s always important to be careful with them.”

While he hoped that Nanako was never in a position to get a Persona, Ken supposed that it was a good thing she was hearing this before such a chance appeared. While everyone discovered that Persona powers weren’t the solution to everything, nobody needed to have it drilled into them the way that he had.

The door opened, and any worries Ken had about having to explain to Nanako how magic could cause trouble vanished for the time being.

The worry that his friends were doing something that was their version of interesting had yet to abate.

He made a mental note to never ask the others how their trip had been unless prompted.

* * *

  
  


Honestly, things shouldn’t have gone this way.

Naoto wasn’t sure how it had happened, but Rise was swaying from side to side, with a tinge of pink on her face. “...Shiomi-san, are you sure this place no longer serves alcohol?”

“Course she is,” Junpei stated. “There was a big announcement about it and everything. Minato was real bummed out cause it meant he wouldn’t get the chance to try out the drinks once he was old enough.”

Yukari sighed. “We’ve known him for two and a half years, and how his priorities work is still a mystery…”

“Odd… if that’s the case, why is Rise-san acting like this?”

“...She’s your Navigator, right?” Kotone checked, and got a nod in return. “...Yeah, it’s probably the atmosphere. Even if no one’s actually drunk, she’s probably sensitive enough to everyone’s moods to get caught up in it. It’s the sort of thing that happens to people like us sometimes, especially Navigators. You learn to tune it out eventually, but… Steep learning curve.”

This was probably a bad sign for the remnants of Rise’s dignity. Naoto sighed. “I don’t suppose you have a way to fix this? Senpai’s homeroom teacher has taken charge of this trip, and she’s…” There really were no words to describe Kashiwagi Noriko.

“Come on, Naoto-kun!” Perhaps she’d been premature in thinking that Rise’s dignity had remnants. “Loosen up a little!”

“Rise-san… a lack of actual alcohol in your bloodstream isn’t going to be that much of a barrier for expulsion.” While they were fortunate enough not to have class with her, Kashiwagi was sort of infamous among the students of Yasogami High.

“...We might be able to use Patra to fix this,” Yukari suggested. “I mean, if it’s sympathetic…”

“We’d have to get her out of here first,” Junpei pointed out. “Sort of a lot of people here… she’d probably just get drunk off of them again.”

Kotone sighed. “It’s times like this when I’m really glad that, when Ken-kun’s old enough to go places like this, he’ll be used to his powers enough to not get overwhelmed.”

“Just times like this?”

“You know what I mean.”

“...Kinda feels bad to just have her leave, though,” Kanji said. “I mean, when she used a favor to get us in here, and all.”

“I didn’t want the favor, anyway,” Rise said, still out of it enough that Naoto wasn’t sure she knew what she was saying. “But they said I’d perform here, and my parents didn’t like it falling through… Oh, I live away from my parents now! I can block their phone numbers!” This was sounding extremely concerning.

“...You know, maybe we should have just gone to the arcade instead,” Junpei sighed. “That’d be… so much easier…” He yawned. “...This place is sorta getting to me, too...”

For as long as she lived, this would definitely be a night that Naoto would never mention to another human being. “This feels like the sort of thing you should have remembered beforehand.” It wasn’t like any of the group from Inaba could have expected to know that getting drunk on the atmosphere was literally a thing that could happen to them.

“You’d be amazed what you can forget when your whole life is something nobody would believe. Come on, let’s get going before your whole team is a useless mess.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Really, I'm pretty sure every group of Persona Users so far has included at least one person with some amount of fame. Given how the usual number of members to a team is eight or so, that's really kind of impressive.
> 
> Ken has recognized that just because his friends do interesting things doesn't mean he wants any part of these things.


	89. In Which Rise Talks to People

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the last day in Iwatodai, the group splits up for a bit.
> 
> Rise ends up being the one who does something interesting.

That they had managed to return to the hotel without further incident, or being seen with a group of strange college students by Kashiwagi, was something that Naoto was incredibly grateful for, even if she wasn’t entirely sure how they’d managed it. Rise had even started to regain her senses on the way back, though it seemed like the atmosphere took longer to fade than it did to take over.

Or maybe that was just something about Rise’s personality. It was hard to be certain.

“I guess I sort of… made the night a lot less fun for everybody, didn’t I?”

It was hard to say that the night would have been fun to begin with. No matter what place they’d gone to, they would still have had the knowledge of where they needed to return to hanging over their heads.

When the members of SEES had heard about where they were staying, they’d all very conspicuously not said anything. Naoto wasn’t sure if that meant anything or not.

Maybe they just hadn't been able to think of anything to say. It wasn’t like this was the kind of news that most people had prepared responses to.

...Actually, if anyone had a prepared response to that kind of thing, it would be sort of concerning. “You couldn’t have known that going into a place like that would have that sort of effect on you.” It was enough to make her worry about the kids, in a few years, assuming that nobody ever thought to warn them. By the time Ken, Ren, and Teddie would be old enough to be in that sort of situation, maybe the rest of them would have been long adjusted.

“I guess not… I’ve never had any trouble with that sort of thing before, you know? And… my parents wanted me to be careful with these favors. I sort of think that maybe they were hoping to get me to cash them in for them, except they don’t really… approve of that sort of thing, so I don’t even know what they were thinking.”

There was probably a word for stories that almost certainly existed, but that someone knew they didn’t want to hear. Whatever that word was, Naoto didn’t know it. Or maybe it was a thing she wanted to hear, but not because she thought she would have liked it.

Life had been a lot simpler back before she’d made the decision to climb through a television set because the group coming through before her had left the portal open.

“Are your parents… particularly strict?”

Rise flopped back on the bed. “Well… even now with everyone knowing my name, and never shutting up about it... I’ve got a lot more freedom now than I did when I lived with them. So… yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“...What do you mean?” Normally, when she spoke to people from the city, they found the countryside stifling, Ken and Adachi both chafing somewhat in the confines of the Yasoinaba region.

“It’s… They expected a lot from me, really… They didn’t even want me to take a hiatus, after all the work I put in to become popular, even when… when I could tell I was losing myself to it. Because… I’d made a commitment, even if I hadn’t realized that someone had sent an audition tape with me in it until I got the actual job offer.” There were so many things wrong with that, Naoto didn’t even know where to start.

Still… she supposed that explained why Rise lived with her grandmother, now. It was probably better, for her, than facing her parents’ disappointment. Naoto had constantly worked hard for her grandfather’s approval, and he’d been willing to freely give it.

Rise turned over and closed her eyes. Naoto took that to mean that the conversation was over, at least for now.

Good. She hated talking to people when she didn’t even know what to think.

* * *

  
  


For their last day in Iwatodai, the team had decided to split up, since they weren’t exactly all connected at the waist or anything, and some of them wanted to do things with other friends before they left. Kanji would be doing something with Naoki, Yukiko would be spending time with two of her classmates… Nobody really knew where Naoto had gotten off to, but they all agreed that it probably wasn’t worth worrying about when she was perfectly capable of taking care of herself.

Worst case, she somehow summoned Sukuna-Hikona and exploded half of a street, but at least that would be a good way to figure out just where she was.

And then there was Rise, whose only plan had been to get as far away from the hotel as possible. Maybe try and find some other Persona Users, since she was good at tracking them down even without explicitly relying on Himiko’s abilities.

...Then again, given what had happened the night before, maybe she would have been better off simply not relying on Himiko. She hadn’t thought that these powers could come with a downside, and yet… there she was.

Still, it wouldn’t do her any good to try and block out her senses, so she kept them open, searching for presences that could possibly lead to an interesting morning, and she immediately came across the sensation that heralded the presence of a Wild Card. It didn’t quite feel like Kotone, though, so she tried not to be too disappointed when it turned out to be a young man with dark blue hair.

Arisato Minato glanced up as soon as she laid eyes on him, as if he’d somehow noticed that she was there. “Oh, you’re one of Ken’s friends, aren’t you?” He seemed slightly more at ease than he had in Inaba, but then, when he’d been in Inaba, he’d just discovered a dead body.

Whatever the reason, Rise tried not to let Himiko look at him too closely. Something about his mind scared her. “I know you know my name.”

“Yeah, you’re a bit too much like Kotone-chan to forget.” She had no idea what he meant by that, and she was sort of scared to ask.

“Well, you can use it, you know.” She paused. “Well. My real name. The other one isn’t to be spoken of here.” If she didn’t make that clear, she wouldn’t have put it past him to refer to her as Risette in front of a crowd of people. Exactly the sort of thing she was trying to avoid.

“Trying to avoid attention?”

“And some other things…” The last time her parents called, they’d mainly been asking when she was going to come back, both to their home and to the stage. Whenever Rise gave it any amount of thought, one of them inevitably led back to the other. “It’s… I don’t know if it’s something I want to go back to.”

There were good things about it, to be sure. She’d made some friends, during that time, that she’d wished she hadn’t had to say goodbye to. But she just wasn’t sure that it was worth everything else.

“If you’re not sure about it, then you probably shouldn’t,” Minato commented. “At least until you are sure. It causes less problems that way, at least in the long run.” Considering the last time they’d met, this was suspiciously helpful.

“Yeah, but… Everyone’s upset with me for backing out to begin with. And saying no isn’t exactly easy.” Not after so long as having it presented as Not An Option. “Whenever I did, it was always like… like I’d failed somehow.”

“It’s still something you should know how to do,” Minato pointed out. “Ideally before you get the chance to permanently cripple your love life, or something. I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a bad thing.” He paused. “...Also, Kotone-chan says that having boundaries is healthy, and she’s the therapist in training, so you should probably listen to her.”

“This is… a lot better advice than I expected.” Rise wondered if maybe she shouldn’t have said that out loud, but Minato just smiled.

“Yeah, well… just don’t tell Ken or Kotone-chan about this. I’ve got a reputation to live down to, after all.”

“So you are doing it on purpose.”

“I’m not sure what I did to make them not like me so much in the first place, but that’s no reason not to enjoy it.”

“...I’m pretty sure that’s the exact reason that they don’t really like you.”

“...Huh. Good to know.” There was definitely something wrong with this man, and Rise wasn’t sure she wanted to know what it was. Still… he’d sort of helped? Maybe?

At the very least, it was nice to have someone else reminding her that she was allowed to say no. That, if she decided that there was a part of herself she’d rather not have, she was permitted to discard it, even if it was less literal than when Ren ran out of room for all of the Personas he carried, and had to decide which ones were worth keeping on hand.

Even if every role she’d taken was a part of herself, she was allowed to choose which ones would ever see the light of day again, because her own self was something that nobody but her was allowed to decide.

On her way back to the others, she took out her phone and blocked her parents’ numbers. As she did, it felt like another block lifted.

Himiko had been a nice name for her Persona to have… but Kanzeon just had a much nicer ring to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just because Minato doesn't get why people find him irritating doesn't mean he can't sometimes enjoy playing into it. Over time, he has in fact learned how to make a healthy Social Link, he just doesn't usually bother because SEES is already a larger social circle than he's entirely comfortable with having.
> 
> There was literally no better place in the plot I have for Kanzeon to happen, so... have a Kanzeon. And now that I have her name written down, I no longer have to constantly look up what order Rise's Personas go in.


	90. In Which The Investigation Team Leaves Iwatodai

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's probably a good thing they do, really. The city might not have survived otherwise.

The others would be arriving back in town later that day, which meant that Ren could probably start planning his social life around them again starting the day after. He wasn’t sure who he’d be able to make the most progress yet- that was something that could only happen once he saw them in person- but that didn’t mean it wasn’t a good idea to consider his options.

“I think it depends on who decides to go see them,” Ken offered. For some reason, he hadn’t questioned Ren asking him for advice about how to structure his social life. “I mean… I know my friends aren’t all going to be able to keep away.”

That was probably true. After all, there were apparently a number of them who were perfectly okay with the idea of making a living through the world inside of the TV.

“Who do you think it would have been? I mean, Kotone-san would definitely be there, but…” Well. Ken knew them better than Ren did. Ren hadn’t even met all of them, let alone gotten to know them well enough to figure out their chances of poking in on an innocent group of high school students.

Ken shrugged. “It depends on who’d have been free, I guess. But Mitsuru-san probably wasn’t there- she’s busy a lot, I’m sort of surprised she had the time to come out during Golden Week.”

And yet, she’d still apparently had the time to form a bond with a child whose biggest commonality with her, it seemed, was in the power of Persona. Ren supposed, given their own social circle, it sort of made sense that these powers would draw people together, but it was still strange to think about. Ken didn’t really act like someone who had a rich friend.

But then, Ken didn’t exactly act like a rich person in general, and given how, these days, even visiting the Velvet Room left Ren with a large stack of cash left over, odds were that everyone on the team would be set for life, or at least for as long as they could find Shadows.

“She probably just wanted to see you.” After all, wasn’t that what people did, when they cared about each other?

Ken glanced at the ground. “I mean, I get that much. She’s… always tried to look out for the rest of us, even if she’s never been all that good at it. Kotone-san says the problem is that we all started out unable to communicate, but it’s fine because we keep trying anyway. That the worst things that happened were because we didn’t try.”

Ren wondered how much Ken and his uncle were trying to communicate with each other. The one time he’d seen any sort of extended interaction between them, Ken had gotten upset due to something he preferred to keep a secret from everybody. “...Like with Shinjiro-san?”

“...It was easier to try and hate him when I didn’t talk to him. Because then I wouldn’t see how much he was hurting. And… we weren’t the only ones who had problems like that, even if ours were more…” He paused, as though searching for the right word. “It’s the one that ended the most badly. And the most expensively.”

Ren glanced at him. He continued. “I mean, I knew they weren’t working, and Revival Beads are expensive, but I… just couldn’t leave it like that. Minato-san wasn’t very happy with me for it, Mitsuru-san and Kotone-san were leaving beads out on the table for when I snuck out… In the end, I think Kotone-san had more hope it’d work than I did.”

But, apparently, he’d still kept going. “Do you wish you’d gone along with the group from Yasogami?”

“...That would have been nice. Even if… I still would have had to come back here. I would have liked to see everyone again.”

The bond between the two of them reached the eighth level, and Ren still didn’t have any idea how it happened. “...Is it Iwatodai you miss, or is it the people who live there?”

“It’s a bit of both, really… though, sometimes, it feels like there’s not much of a difference.”

* * *

  
  


Yukiko thought that she might have liked the city, if she’d had more than a few days to get used to it. As it was, they had to go home, so for now it was simply going to remain a possibility that had yet to be realized, sitting on the shelf with more than fifty others of varying size, plausibility, and desirability.

Chie had enjoyed the trip as well. That much made sense. While her friend was perfectly at home in Inaba, she was still one to jump on any sort of excitement, and the city was packed full of it. It was one of those things that told Yukiko that Chie could never know how she’d become so connected to their underclassmen.

“I mean, I guess someone in our year had to end up being the cool senpai,” Yosuke, who had even less chance of being told about the other world than Chie, and thrown away his own chance at being the cool senpai a year ago, remarked. “Sort of makes sense it’d be Yukiko-san.”

“You really think that?” Sure, Kanji, Rise, and Naoto all looked up to her to some extent, but it felt like that was less of a school thing and more of a Persona thing. Besides… “I don’t think the year above us has anybody like that.”

“I think that’s because they were too busy fawning over their own cool senpai,” Chie commented. “I’m not even sure there are many third years in the clubs.” But then, Yukiko didn’t think that the clubs had a lot of people in them in general, with the possible exception of the music club. When school let out, most students just vanished into the wilderness.

“...I think I’d rather do without the attention.” Kubo, admittedly, had been weird, but if Rise and Naoto’s lockers stuffed full of gifts from admirers was anything to go by, she was lucky to only have some amount of local fame. At least it meant that anyone who decided to try hitting on her was more likely to do so to her face.

“I dunno if you can do that,” Yosuke pointed out. “You’re hanging out with the most famous kids in school.”

“How did that happen, anyway?” Chie asked her. “I mean, I don't really remember meeting them too often, but then they just showed up this summer and started following you around.”

Yukiko couldn’t even say that hadn’t sounded right, because summer break had definitely been that sort of weird, even if she’d thought that Chie was sufficiently distracted by Akihiko.

“It’s…” She searched for a word to accurately describe it, and was forced to give up. “...complicated.” A series of coincidences had led them to each other, along with the common connection of a murder case that had had a good portion of their number in its sights.

But… well. She didn’t want to tell Chie about all the times she’d almost died. That would just make her worry, and she worried enough as it was.

Even if she did want to tell her, she probably wouldn’t have done it in a space this public. That just seemed like an invitation for all sorts of disasters.

* * *

  
  


Teddie had been keeping himself busy since Kanji left. He’d hung out with Kenny and Renren, he’d done his homework… The models that he was working on were nearing completion, he just had to figure out what colors that he wanted them to be. And how detailed he wanted to be about it.

As it was, he thought more details would be better. It probably wasn’t going to be bearfect, but creativity was a beary important thing, at least according to Mama Tatsumi.

It was an idea he really liked. After all, when he took the time to express himself, it confirmed that there really was a self for him to express. Something that Kintoki-Douji’s existence had proved for himself, but it was important to be able to let others know. That way, they’d still like him even if they somehow figured out he was a Shadow!

As it was, hypothetical paint jobs could wait until the last bits of glue had dried. If he didn’t, it didn’t just risk mucking up the colors, Teddie could accidentally ruin the whole paintbrush! And he had so few bearlongings as it was, he didn’t need to break the few he had.

Teddie put the model he was working on back on the shelf with a nod. Yes, that looked just fine, all it needed was a splash of color, complete with some amount of detailing.

Kintoki-Douji shifted, and Teddie paused, listening, and he could hear the front door opening. “I’m back!”

“Kanji! You’re home!” He hurried out of their shared room, and hoped that he wouldn’t think to ask about the puzzle pieces that were still scattered all over the floor.

“Hey, Ted. Is Ma around?”

“I think she went to help that nice lady from the store with something. I think she said something about her fish?” He liked the store lady. She sold some really good snacks and things, even if she did look at him strangely from time to time. Everyone looked at him like that sometimes.

Ai-chan said it’d happen less as he got better at acting human. Kenny said it’d happen less as people got used to him. Teddie wasn't sure which one was the real answer, but he supposed that either one would work just fine.

He’d learn to be human eventually- that was what school was for, after all!

“Really? I’m not sure Ma knows anything about fish…” He shrugged. “Well, guess I’ll just wait for her to come back. You get anything to eat yet?”

“Do topsicles count?”

From the look on Kanji’s face, they beary definitely did not.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko being the oldest member of the team is one of those things she doesn't really think about a lot of the time, because the people who introduced her to this whole mess are all in middle school and at that point they knew what they were doing a lot better than she did. On the rare occasion where it does come up, she's left sort of stranded.
> 
> Teddie is the sort of person who really shouldn't be left alone without sufficient distractions, or else very localized chaos will happen. Things like healthy eating are a bit of a foreign concept to him still.


	91. In Which Yukiko Makes A Mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just another peaceful day before it all is unfailingly shattered once again, at least in the eyes of those who know what's going on.
> 
> Yukiko doesn't quite say the right thing.

The thing about living in a small town was that rumors spread quickly. Within a week of Ken coming to Inaba, everyone knew that Dojima from the police department had taken in his orphaned nephew. The Midnight Channel, as a rumor, had spread so fast that nobody could trace it back to its roots.

Murder, of course, had been the talk of the town for half a year, and now that everyone outside of a specific group of people believed the case had been solved… well, that just made it a slightly more socially acceptable topic of conversation.

Ken didn’t find it any more palatable than he had before, and not just because he was one of those people who realized it might not have all been solved. It was like the people around him were detached from the reality of how people had actually been hurt by this thing. Like they hadn’t realized that three people had died to give them this fleeting entertainment.

“Hey, Amada, what do you think?” He heard one of his classmates ask. He didn’t know their name- in general, his classmates had just faded into the background once he had something more important to focus on.

“I think you need to take this more seriously,” He stated, putting away his things even faster than he had before. “People died, you know.” Could still die, if they were right about this not being over, or if an unknowing person who could have a Persona tripped too close to their television screen. Wouldn’t that be a thing to figure out?

Sure, it wasn’t likely- it had been a run of bad luck that Ken had found the TV World in that manner- but if it could happen to one person, it could happen to somebody else.

His classmates laughed it off. As soon as his backpack was sealed, he was out the door, with the singular goal of getting as far away from them as possible.

He sort of wished Shu hadn’t gotten caught cheating. Then his classmate’s attention wouldn’t have found its way back to him. Still, they’d probably forget about it eventually. The whispers about him weren’t anywhere near as pervasive as the whispers about Shu himself. Ken felt kind of sorry for him. Gossip was a force that even the most powerful users of magic couldn’t escape, let alone a normal kid their age. He simply didn’t stand a chance.

These sorts of rumors… they were the type that could cause trouble, if they spread too far. Many rumors could, but these were the ones where it was almost guaranteed. No matter how many times Ken reminded himself that the others were only so callous because they didn’t know better, it was still enough to make him worry.

He’d actually gotten out of his classroom before Ren, for once, which probably said something, because that didn’t happen all too often. “Ken-senpai? Is something wrong?”

“...It’s fine, Ren-san. I mean… it’s just the usual stuff.”

Ren nodded along, pushing his glasses farther up his face. “I think I’m going to see Marie, today, before it starts raining again. Do you… want to come along?”

“...It’s fine.” Ken actually did like Marie, but after meeting the pair of twins that were attached to Kotone and Minato, he was wary of spending too much time around people from the Velvet Room. “You go ahead. I…” Well, he couldn’t say he had plans for the day, really…

Teddie popped out of his and Ren’s classroom. “Kenny, can we go to Junes? There’s something I want to look at.”

Oh. An occupation. “Do you mean Junes Junes or… because I don’t know if I should be getting things from home at the moment…” So much time without a disappearance. So much time when his uncle might actually get home on time, and notice him coming back in with a spear. There were some risks that he just wasn’t prepared to take at the moment, particularly when it could potentially mean explaining… well, everything.

“Are things all right there?” If anything, Ren sounded even more concerned now. “...You know, if anything goes wrong, you could come by my place for a bit. My parents probably wouldn’t even notice you, if it was just for a few days or so.”

All right, that was good to know in case of emergencies. “It’s fine, just… awkward.” And he didn’t think that was something that he could ever fix. “But… I can figure things out, if I need to.” It couldn't be that much harder than constantly convincing various school faculty that he was actually getting sufficient sleep, right? “Teddie, I’ll… go with you either way, but...”

“Great! Come on, Kenny!” And thus Ken was pulled away from Ren by Hurricane Teddie.

* * *

  
  


“Hey, Yukiko?” Yukiko glanced at Chie. “What do you do the days we don’t spend time together?”

“Well, I usually spend time with Kanji-kun, or Rise-chan, or Naoto-kun. Or Ken-kun and Ren-kun, you’ve met them, right?”

Chie nodded. “Yeah, they’re… nice kids, I guess… it’s just weird that you don’t have as much time anymore.”

Well. That was what happened when a person made new friends. Yukiko supposed that Chie would find that a foreign concept, though- she’d always had problems making friends. In the past year, she’d managed to reach an understanding with Hanamura Yosuke where they got along well enough half the time and spent the other half at each others’ throats, but that was about it, unless she’d finally noticed Ichijo Kou’s subtle attempts at flirting with her.

Yukiko tried telling herself she wasn’t jealous, and was halfway successful. So the exploration of a world filled with fog was taking time away from her best friend even when she wasn’t actively taking part in it. That was just how life worked, wasn’t it?

Besides, one of the things she’d realized since getting Konohana Sakuya was that maybe she’d been leaning on Chie just a bit too much. Stepping away like this… that was healthy, right?

“I don’t think I’ve really lost time…” She mused. “I just have… more things to do with it. And some of them are… more important than others.” Even spending time with Ren was something where she felt like, if she didn’t do enough of it, the negative consequences would be dire.

“Oh. So I’m… not that important.” Chie looked downcast, kicking at a pebble which made it all the way to the other side of the road.

“Th-that’s not what I mean. I…” How was she supposed to explain that the reason she couldn’t spend as much time with her best friend was because it was a matter of life and death? “Things have been… interesting… lately.” And even that felt like a massive understatement. “Everyone’s always focused on just one thing.” Usually murder. It was sort of concerning.

But even when it wasn’t… Everyone saw when Kanji was on TV, and wouldn’t stop talking about him. Everyone heard that Rise was coming to Inaba, and wouldn’t stop talking about her. “...Or one person.”

“All focused on one person…” Chie repeated Yukiko’s words, quietly, in such a way that it rang a large number of warning bells. “Your friends… everyone in town is talking about them.”

“Yes, that does happen when people end up on TV. And this town’s so quiet most of the time, just about anyone could make it onto the news… Chie?”

“...I think I just forgot to do something. I’ll see you later, Yukiko!” Chie sped off in the direction of the shopping district.

Yukiko wasn’t sure why… but she had a bad feeling about this.

* * *

  
  


“We have a new request for you,” Lavenza stated, leaning back against one of the seats in the Velvet Room. “It’s from me and Marie both, this time.”

“We’re supposed to help you and stuff, right?” Marie sounded like she was trying her hardest to sound like she didn’t care, but Ren knew better already, so he wasn’t sure why she bothered. “And, well, we’ve been thinking, and we can probably work together to get you a really cool Persona. You just have to get together the materials.”

“What… kind of materials?” Whatever it was, if it wasn’t Personas he had on hand, it might have been easier to acquire ingredients for them and fuse them up than to use the Compendium for them, depending on what it was.

“We can see several options for how to proceed,” Lavenza stated, flipping through the pages of the Compendium. “There is Phoenix and Nue, or Nekomata and Rakshasa. Or perhaps you’d prefer Anzu and Yaksini, or Mithra and Kushi Mitama. Or, if you have the funds, perhaps Marie could make use of a ritual involving a specific rare type of necklace.”

Marie blinked. “...Maybe don’t do that one, though. I think it’d cost more than more of those Personas…” Right. Fighting Shadows was something that made them rich, but even then, those funds couldn’t last forever. “You might find it in the other world, though. There’s all sorts of stuff there, right?”

Maybe there was, but Ren didn’t think he was quite ready to go mugging Shadows for jewelry. Cash was more than sufficient.

“I, um… could I get a list?” He could keep a look out the next time someone got kidnapped, or if someone else wanted spending money. Like shopping, only it involved less food and more metaphysical sources of power that his parents would call him childish for believing in. “That’s… that’s a lot.”

“I will start writing right away,” Lavenza stated, before grabbing from Marie’s stack of stationery.

“Hey! Lavenza!”

Ren glanced at Igor. Igor just sighed. “While I may employ these two, I hold no illusions that I can truly control them.”

As much as that wasn’t reassuring, it was still more or less the answer he’d expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can probably see the part where I pulled out an actual Fusion Calculator.
> 
> It took all the way up until now for me to decide whether the next arc would star Shu, Marie, or Chie, but I eventually decided on the latter mainly because the yellow glasses still exist and Teddie will be ecstatic to finally be able to give them a home. And also so I wouldn't have to put together a whole new Persona.
> 
> I'm not sure what she ends up doing to make the news, but you can assume that it's probably something ill-advised.


	92. In Which Yukiko Is Not Having A Good Time Right Now

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chie has somehow succeeded in making the news. This is not a good thing.
> 
> It even manages to overshadow Ren's birthday.

When the news report ended, Yukiko was left staring at the screen, as the world continued to go by without anyone recognizing the danger.

...Well. Most anyone. It was very quickly confirmed that somebody else had realized it.

_ Amada Ken: Amagi-san? Did you see the news story that was just on? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Yes. I’m worried about Chie. _

Even if they hadn’t been spending as much time together as they used to… she was still her friend, and didn’t deserve to be pulled into the mess that Yukiko had gotten involved in. But she’d made the news, and people who ended up in the TV tended to first end up on TV, so maybe it was just a bit late for that.

_ Amada Ken: I don’t see her very often, but… the two of you are close, aren’t you? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: We’ve known each other since we were little. I shouldn’t be surprised that she’d have done something like this eventually. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Do you want to talk to the others about it? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: ...It’ll be fine. If someone tried attacking her, she’d probably just kick them into submission. _

Besides, she didn’t want to bother anyone. Especially when it wasn’t like they’d ever been able to prevent a kidnapping.

She’d try and warn Chie of the potential danger, if she could, but… maybe there just wasn’t anything else they could do. Besides, it wasn’t even guaranteed she’d show up on the Midnight Channel.

She couldn’t tell if Ken disapproved or not. She didn’t receive another response back.

* * *

  
  


Being twelve years old, Ren found, wasn’t much different from being eleven. There was the new blur on the Midnight Channel to worry about, sure- he was pretty sure it was someone he’d met before, but he didn’t know much more than that- but that was an issue that would occur no matter what his age was.

School, however, was always the same. Mostly being ignored, except for when he was called on in class, and he’d spent so long learning to make himself small as possible that that hardly ever happened. Which honestly made things sort of boring, but at least it was a useful skill to have. As cool as flashy things could be, sometimes they just weren’t practical.

He didn’t think it’d be much different at home, either. His parents wouldn’t be around, or they wouldn’t notice him… a couple of years ago, they’d told him he was too old for birthdays, and he’d been lucky to get them to look at him ever since. He honestly expected his birthday to pass by without much, if any, acknowledgement. If only because he wasn’t sure Teddie knew what a birthday even was.

Teddie had actually left on his own with the apparent goal of acquiring ice cream. Ren thought that maybe he should have been slightly worried about that, but it’d probably be fine. He’d been around long enough to know how to get ice cream without making that much of a scene.

“Do you think he’ll be all right?” Ken asked, watching the bear leave.

He shrugged. “It… should be fine. He’s not entirely new anymore, after all.”

“So, you think he knows what he’s doing?”

“I wouldn’t go that far…” He didn’t even know what he was doing, most of the time. What chance would a Shadow who had lived most of his life surrounded by fog have?

Ken laughed, as if Ren hadn’t been entirely serious. Or maybe he was just trying to convince himself. “Well, anyway… it’s your birthday today, right? I… kind of got you something.” The object was handed over.

Ren blinked at it. “Senpai… this is a phone.”

“Right. I thought it’d be better if you had a way to talk to us without coming to see us in person, since… well, it’s not like everyone’s always going to be in Inaba.”

Of course not. There had been the Yasogami High school camping trip earlier that year, and more recently there was their visit to Iwatodai, which Ren had heard just as much about from Teddie as from Kanji, Naoto, or Yukiko.

Rise hadn’t spoken a word about the whole event, just quietly smiled and nodded along with whatever they had to say. Ren supposed it was probably easier than trying to explain the change that had come across her- the only time he’d noticed a similar adjustment of someone’s personal atmosphere was around the time when Kanji said Take-Mikazuchi had become Rokuten Maoh.

The name of Rise’s new Persona was still unknown. He was sure it would come up the next time they all had to dive into a television. “Isn’t this… a bit much, though? I mean… phones cost a lot of money…”

Ken just shrugged. “Well, I mean… we’ve got a lot of money. I can make it up later… also, I can’t take it back, the person I got it from was looking at me weirdly enough the first time…” Well, yes. Most people would be surprised by someone who was barely into his teenage years walking up and buying a phone with cash. Ren wondered if his friend had maybe been taking too many notes from Kotone. “And it’ll be really helpful for us to talk, if there’s anything on the Midnight Channel tonight.”

Left unsaid was the fact that, while the team as a whole hadn’t talked about it, there would probably be someone on the Midnight Channel that night. There was sort of a pattern, when it came to that sort of thing.

It would probably be somebody that Ren had at least met.

Really, he wasn’t sure why they weren’t talking about it that much, but it wasn’t like trying to preemptively stop the thing had ever produced results, so at least they were saving time.

“I- all right, then.” There really wasn’t any arguing with Ken at the moment.

Besides, if it was left up to his parents, Ren wouldn’t get a phone until he graduated high school, if even then. If this was a gift Ken could afford to give, then it definitely wasn’t one he could afford to turn down.

If only he could figure out how it worked…

* * *

  
  


She could have stopped this.

All she would have had to do was spend all of her time after school with Chie, and then, well… maybe she could have done something, even if her friend was still basking in all of the fame she’d secured for herself until the next big, interesting thing happened. That was all it would have took.

She knew it was, because Chie had always been hesitant to let her out of her sight, and while she’d been willing to give Yukiko the space she needed… well, apparently she’d been just that desperate for attention.

Desperate enough that there was a copy of her wearing a yellow martial arts uniform and standing in front of the entrance of what looked to be a dojo of some kind. Not that it was really easy to tell. Wearing her glasses didn’t exactly make onscreen fog clear up as well as the actual fog did.

She was also, for some reason, carrying a microphone, which she tapped nervously. “Um… hello, is this thing on? Testing, one, two, three… Never mind.”

“Chie…” It was a very Chie thing to do, enough that Yukiko could almost forget that the girl on screen was just a Shadow.

“Whatever. I’m sure everyone’s tuning in.” The Shadow tossed the microphone to the side, where it clattered away offscreen. “So. I’m Satonaka Chie, and I’m the master of this dojo, and I’ll be making sure you all know how to defend yourselves. You can count on me to make sure everyone does their very best. Just come on in, and I’ll show you just how reliable I can be!”

The image on the screen faded out. Yukiko blinked, and reached out to brush her fingers against the screen.

When she poked her head through, all that she saw was the inside of her castle.

She could have prevented this.

_ Amada Ken: Are you all right? I saw the Midnight Channel… _

_ Amagi Yukiko: I thought we’d agreed that that wasn’t for children. _

_ Amada Ken: I’m thirteen. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: ...I thought we’d agreed that that wasn’t for middle schoolers. _

_ Amada Ken: I was worried. I know that you and Satonaka-san care about each other a lot. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: I just… feel like I could have done more to stop this. Not just her being in the TV, but her doing something to get on the Midnight Channel to start with. _

_ Amada Ken: Why’s that? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: She… I think she was upset that I was so busy with the case, and spending time with all of you. Maybe if I’d spent more time with her… _

_ Amada Ken: She’d have ended up like this anyway, if you’re that close with her. I don’t think anyone in SEES has any close relationships that have never been at least tangentially involved with Shadows. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Nanako-chan. _

_ Amada Ken: She figured out I could use magic without being told. She doesn’t count. _

Ken’s words were almost reassuring. In the sense that anything could be, when Yukiko’s best friend was missing on the other side of a television.

She should have prevented this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm still not sure what Chie did to get on the news, but given the consequences of being on the news in Inaba, it was definitely something ill-advised.
> 
> Chie is wearing the Master Dojo uniform from the Isle of Armor because it amuses me. Several years in the future, when the Sword and Shield expansion pass comes out for these characters, the members of the Investigation Team are mostly going to find it funny.
> 
> Chie will not be one of those people. Chie will need to be talked out of throwing her copy of the game out the window despite not having gotten the expansion pass.
> 
> Anyway, this is basically a study of what happens when you take her relatively mild issues from the start of P4 and leave them to fester for a bit while also making Yukiko less dependent on her. Should go in interesting directions!


	93. In Which Yukiko Goes Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chie has been taken into the television, and this means that preparations must be made.
> 
> ...It is, however, possible to be a bit too overprepared.

As far as anyone could tell, the general response of the group, to initially seeing Chie on the Midnight Channel, had been to shrug and trust that Yukiko could handle it, with the exception of Yukiko, who absolutely could not handle it. The whole thing had been a bit of a mess, really, particularly when they’d only had a day or so to act to begin with.

At the very least, having Yukiko around meant that they knew enough about Chie that Rise would probably be able to find her straight away.

Still, it was strange to think that his after-school plans had been decided by his having too much faith in somebody.

“So, we’re supposed to get all our stuff together and meet at Junes in an hour,” Ren told Teddie, already enjoying having a new phone even if texting was difficult. “Is there anything in particular you want to pick up, or…?”

“Well, I need my fur, and I’ve already got the bearfect glasses for Chie-chan, except I dunno if we’ll be needing them yet… Oh! And my snacks! I can’t forget the snacks!”

Given how they worked as emergency healing… Ren agreed. They really couldn’t forget the snacks.

“I could probably use some more fireworks…” He admitted out loud. Sure, he could use a fire Persona, but fireworks were fun, and it was really cool when they detonated right on top of a Shadow. He needed to do that some more.

“Should we take Kenny with us to get the stuff? We can pick up Koro-chan on the way!”

That… actually sounded like a good idea. “...Yeah. We can do that.”

* * *

  
  


Yukiko stepped into the metalworks with a purpose.

Daidara-san glanced up as she entered, before shrugging and looking away again. He did that, most of the time. “...Hey, Amagi.”

“Hello, Daidara-san.” It was impossible to understate just how much she owed to this man, who was willing to buy Shadow tongues and the like from her, and to sell her weapons, while also asking no questions about either. Things would have gone very differently if he’d been more willing to report her suspicious behavior.

Kanji’s, too. Outfits that worked as armor were starting to become a major part of everyone’s wardrobes, though they would hopefully never become necessary outside of the TV.

“So, what have you got for me today? Lanterns, masks…?”

“None of that.” She wondered if she sounded apologetic enough. “Actually, I want a new fan. The best one you have.”

“...Really? The best that I’ve got?”

Yukiko nodded. “It’s important.” So important that there was no overstating it, even if she’d never be able to put it into words that someone without a Persona could understand.

“...You do realize that it’ll cost you.” Right. Weapons were expensive. Good weapons, even more. And she wanted the best thing she could get a hold of.

“That’s fine. I’m willing to pay.” Whatever it took.

Daidara looked at Yukiko like he was seeing her for the first time. “...Found something worth fighting for, have you?” As if he could somehow tell that she wasn’t stockpiling weapons for the fun of it.

But then, she’d been buying new weapons pretty much monthly, so maybe that he’d make that guess shouldn’t have been a surprise. “...Something like that.”

“Well, if it’s Yume no Ukihashi you’re looking for, that’ll cost you… a bit under sixty-thousand.” That… wasn’t entirely out of her price range, not when she hadn’t had that much to spend her money on besides weapons, but that was… painful. “There’s something else that might be an option, but it’d take me a week to get a hold of the person who currently has it, and I’m assuming you don’t have that much time.”

“Probably not.” She wondered if it would be a good idea to ask the weaponsmith just how much he knew about what they were doing, but then decided against it. It couldn’t matter all that much, so long as they still had his support in the end. “I’ll take the one you have right now.”

It was expensive, so much that she had to wonder just what this man thought of her paying him in cash, but it would be worth it in the end, as long as it could see her through to it.

By not working hard enough, she’d managed to get Chie into life-threatening danger. The least she could do was go and pull her back out of it.

* * *

  
  


If there was one thing the group had learned from their unexpected acquisition of Naoto, it was that they had to make extra sure that they weren’t being watched or anything. They already could barely afford any sort of delays when they didn’t have a team member with high personal stakes in how this turned out.

Fortunately, it appeared that most people were still more or less unaware of the fact that there was a large group of people smuggling animals and weapons through the department store.

Somehow. Ken would have questioned it, except that the last time he did, they got Naoto. According to Ren, this meant he was no longer allowed to question these things.

“Amagi-san… did you spend all your money on a weapon for yourself?” He got it. Really, he did. If all weapon purchases hadn’t had to go through Minato, Kotone, or Mitsuru, he might have indulged in something similar in the past. But that was a much, much higher quality weapon than the rest of them currently had.

Among other things, Kanji’s current weapon of choice was a coffee table. At this point, Ken was pretty sure that he was just grabbing whatever piece of furniture was closest and rolling with it.

“I also have some new knives for Ren-kun.” She handed out a pair of daggers, which Ren took appreciatively. The fact that Ren had been the one to lend her money for the sole purpose of buying daggers was probably relevant here, but this really wasn’t the time to be arguing semantics. “But… I just want to make sure that Chie’s okay.”

“I’m sure it’ll be all right,” Rise tried to reassure her. “Himiko became Kanzeon the other day, and I think her range has gotten a lot bigger, too. I bet I can find anyone in there.”

It was easy to believe her. If only because, given how Fuuka had been able to scan the entirety of Tartarus, dedicated Navigators were actually kind of scary and it was a good thing they didn’t have any way to attack.

Naoto nodded. “Then we go in, ensure Senpai's safety from her Shadow, and… figure out what to do next.”

“It shouldn’t be that bad,” Ken found himself pointing out. “I mean, as long as we’re all alive, that means we can do better next time.” It was something he’d needed to hear himself, once upon a time. Most likely, it was something the others could do with hearing, too.

“Let’s hope that there isn’t a next time…” Rise sighed, leaning over towards the TV. “Okay, I’m pretty sure we’re safe to go in.” Before she could take another look to be sure, she just climbed on through, the fox happily jumping after her.

Koromaru stayed behind at the moment, possibly to try and help the others struggling with Kanji’s coffee table. Or maybe he was enjoying watching the struggle.

Ken wasn’t sure. He was mostly staying behind to make sure the table didn’t fall on his head.

* * *

  
  


Somehow, they all managed to make it through the television without getting caught by another detective, or having anyone concussed by a coffee table. Neither of these were things that Ken had thought he’d have to worry about two years ago, but then, two years ago, his life expectancy had been significantly shorter than it was now.

Rise, true to her word, managed to locate Chie after just taking a few moments to talk with Yukiko about something. Ken didn’t hear the exact conversation, but it had apparently been enough, and that was really the most important thing.

Kanzeon looked… well, he couldn’t really say she looked different than he’d expected, because he never knew what to expect. Some evolved Personas had a great deal in common with their predecessors, like Juno or Messiah. Others, like Kala-Nemi, barely had any similarities to what they had once been- and, in Kala-Nemi’s case, that had definitely been a relief, once he figured out what it meant.

Kanzeon was somewhere in the middle. It was easy to see how she’d come from Himiko- perhaps Navigators’ Personas just had to maintain a consistent structure throughout their forms- but the differences that existed were more jarring because of it.

Or, well… mostly because of it. That was a very busy outfit.

Whatever Ken’s opinion was on Rise’s Persona’s fashion sense, the fact remained that she got them to the building from the Midnight Channel more quickly than they’d reached anyone before. The building seemed smaller, on the outside, than the other places they had visited, but it wasn’t like that necessarily had to mean anything. Gekkoukan High certainly hadn’t had enough mass to produce Tartarus.

Kanji glanced to the side. “Why’s there a microphone sitting there?” Sure enough, a discarded piece of sound equipment was lying at the edge of the path where it had been discarded.

“I think the other Chie had it last night,” Yukiko spoke, leaning over and picking the object up. “I wonder if she’ll want it back.”

She had thrown it away, but Ken supposed that Shadows had never been beings he could take as shining examples of impulse control. Really, the biggest danger was in picking stuff up in a world filled with Shadows, and he’d been doing that for as long as he’d known there was stuff to be found.

Besides, Yukiko used a fan. There was nothing stopping her from carrying an extra object if she so desired.

And so, they stepped into the dojo.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm just going to say that, in any Persona game, this is definitely the part of the year where your weapon dealers stop even wanting to ask those questions that they don't actually voice. Even if some things still definitely deserve questioning.
> 
> Kanzeon. Kanzeon, why do you need those stripes? It's jarring.


	94. In Which A Dojo Is Entered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko is still not having a very good day.

They stepped into the dojo, and the doors slid shut behind them. Ken didn’t need to turn around to know that they had probably vanished in the five seconds that no one had been looking. Doors tended to do that, in places like this.

Rise still had Kanzeon out, and was scanning the area. “...Well, the Shadows here don’t seem to have gotten much stronger than they were in Void Quest. If anything, they might be a bit weaker.”

Kanji sighed. “Well, guess that’s one good thing.”

“How many floors are there?” Yukiko asked, twirling, her very powerful-looking fan in her hands. Ken wondered if she’d spent any money at all since getting her Persona, if she was carrying around something like that.

“That… I can’t figure out that part,” Their Navigator admitted. “I know there’s at least eight of them, because that’s how far I can reach in here. There’s just too much activity to see any farther.”

Right. Not everyone could be Fuuka and have a range spanning the entirety of Tartarus, with all of the Shadows and people moving about within. Mitsuru had been able to reach higher up the tower than Rise was in the dojo, at least according to Kotone, but floors in Tartarus tended to be on the smaller side and didn’t involve such complicated things as doors.

All things considered, Ken thought Rise was all that they’d need, even if she probably couldn’t just scan the whole of Inaba in search of Persona Users.

...Well, okay, given time she probably could, but that was still going to remain their last resort option. “Lots of Shadows?”

“I think this place might just be more of a maze, too… but, yeah, there’s lots of Shadows. Half of them look like wrestlers for some reason…”

Ren shrugged. “Well, it is a martial arts dojo… I guess this is as close as the Shadows can get. I… can’t imagine Satonaka-san managing to teach one of them though.”

For the first time since her friend had appeared on the Midnight Channel, Yukiko started laughing. “She probably… wouldn’t help them figure out… when to give up on the buffs…!”

“It’s not that funny…” Ren groaned. Ken would try and comfort him, but he actually found the reminder of that day to be hilarious. Teddie wasn’t even bothering to hold back his laughter.

Rise and Naoto blinked at them. “...Rise-san, do you know what they’re talking about?”

“I have no idea.”

“Think I might…” Kanji sighed. “But I’m not gonna talk about it.”

This adventure, it seemed, was off to an interesting start.

* * *

  
  


The voices that would speak as the group made progress in an area were something that Yukiko had gotten used to. With the exception of Kubo, who had clearly not been a very well-adjusted individual, they could usually say something about a person.

...Honestly, the only reason the voices in Void Quest hadn’t been helpful in that manner was because they already knew that the person stuck there wasn’t a very well-adjusted individual. So it wasn’t like their usefulness had ever really been in question.

Either way. The voices were a thing that more or less faded into the background, most of the time, unless they were listening for them. And Yukiko never really listened to them- it felt like a breach of privacy. And it wasn’t like there was any sort of direct relevance to the situation, beyond figuring out what the next shouting match was going to be like.

But then, Yukiko had never heard her own voice coming out of nowhere before.

**_“Thanks, Chie.”_ ** The voice sounded somewhat younger, maybe, but then, she’d said those same words many times over the years, for as many reasons as there were fish in the Samegawa.  **_“I… really don’t know what I’d do without you.”_ **

The response was Chie’s voice laughing, and it made Yukiko’s heart clench just to hear it.  **_“Wow, you… really need me, huh? Even if you have everything, I guess you still need help every once in a while.”_ **

**_“I- I wouldn’t say I have everything, really… But I’m glad you’re here, Chie. You’re so reliable…”_ ** She had said that before, hadn’t she? Even if she didn’t remember ever having a conversation that happened quite like that… it was like someone had taken all the talks they’d ever had, and thrown them in a blender, or something.

**_“You… think I’m reliable?”_ ** The voices faded, leaving Yukiko standing in an empty hallway once again, wondering where the sadness in Chie’s voice had come from.

Everything earlier… that had been made of happy memories, hadn’t it?

“...Senpai?” She blinked, and suddenly she saw Rise looking at her with a concerned gaze, visible even beyond Kanzeon’s scanning.

“Yuki-chan’s gone all quiet…” Teddie’s voice was quiet, too, but it was easy to hear how nervous he was. “It’s like when we first found her.”

Had she been quiet back then? She couldn’t tell. The whole thing around when she got Konohana Sakuya was a bit of a blurry inferno, albeit one where the resulting fire had eventually been contained inside herself. But then… she couldn’t imagine it had been a much better day than this.

“Do you… want to sit this one out?” Ken suggested.

Yukiko shook her head. How could he even ask that? “I have to do this.” Her best friend was stuck here, was suffering in a way she didn’t yet understand, and he wanted her to sit it out? Absolutely not. “For Chie.”

Ken didn’t protest. Just nodded, as if he somehow got it. Except that he couldn’t possibly understand everything she was going through.

How could he? SEES had never needed to face their Shadows.

“...I guess we can’t stop you. Just… don’t light anything on fire you don’t absolutely have to.”

“I make no promises.”

* * *

  
  


There were, in fact, a number of wrestler Shadows in the area- Gigas, Rise and Ken called them, and they’d probably know best of everyone- and Ren was not thrilled about it. Sure, no one ever dared him to walk up and cast Tarunda on one, but he knew for a fact that this was just because Rise lacked the context to do so.

Still, as dangerous as the Shadows were, they could still fall, particularly before Yukiko and her fan that was much more dangerous than any other weapons owned by a member of the group that were actually in the same town as them. It was… sort of scary, actually.

As the most recent Shadows collapsed into a burning heap, Ren glanced at Ken. “Are you sure she’ll be okay?”

“I mean, we can’t just send her home or anything.” That wasn’t a real answer to his question and they both knew it. “And, sure, it’s probably not the safest thing for her to use a Persona when she’s like that, but… Well, Teddie and Koromaru can handle her if there’s any problems, right?”

“You can count on me, Kenny!” Teddie gave a determined little hop, his feet squeaking when he landed.

“Arf!”

“You know, I can hear you.” Ren tried not to wince away from her tone, but he wasn’t sure he succeeded.

Ken, meanwhile, faced up to her with no visible fear. “We’re just concerned since this is a… pretty personal thing, for you. Since she’s your friend, and all.”

He didn’t mention the voices. Ren supposed this was probably a good thing- they needed to be tactful about this, even if half of the group didn’t seem to know what that was.

“That’s why I have to be here.” Yukiko tucked away her fan, though it was clear that this didn’t make her harmless, particularly when Konohana Sakuya had not faded once since their arrival. “Chie… she was always wondering why I wasn’t spending as much time with her anymore.”

“What’d you tell her?” Kanji asked. “I mean, I know you can’t just say you were hangin’ out inside a television. No one’d ever believe it, ‘less you poked the screen in fronta them.”

“I… didn’t really tell her anything. I just kept saying that I was busy, since…” That did sound easier than trying to come up with a specific excuse, even if it wouldn’t satisfy everyone. Clearly, though, one of those people it didn’t satisfy was Chie.

Ken gave Yukiko a long look. “Amagi-san… how long have you known Satonaka-san for?”

“Um…” She started counting on her fingers. “...About ten years, give or take a bit.”

“...And you shared basically everything, right?”

“More or less… It’s why I couldn’t just say I was busy with the inn, she knows the people there too well for them to cover for me. Is something wrong?”

“...Maybe I should have introduced you to Fuuka-san or Junpei-san at some point. Or… Okay, Akihiko-san’s a bad example for a lot of reasons… except maybe for what not to do… Kotone-san would probably be better...”

At this point, Ren had no idea what they were talking about, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to know.

Still… he supposed this meant that Yukiko was going to keep helping until either they found Chie or she burned herself out.

He honestly wasn’t sure which one was more likely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The contents of Chie's Dojo that I've figured out- Gigases of many colors. That's it. Probably the only thing stopping me from recreating a certain Persona Q battle is the fact that Shadow Chie thinks that's a bit too tacky. (And when a Shadow says something's too tacky, they're probably right.) There may also be higher-leveled versions of the castle Shadows, particularly Beetles and Turrets.
> 
> Honestly, we don't get a lot of examples of people with close relationships who have little to do with Persona stuff outside of the Wild Cards- there's Fuuka and Natsuki, and Ann and Shiho, and... that's about it, really. If Shinji had actually managed to stay uninvolved with SEES that would have brought the number up to three, but... that didn't exactly happen, now, did it?
> 
> With a lack of good examples to look at, it's really not surprising that Yukiko managed to let things get to this point.


	95. In Which Shadows Are Encountered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of Shadows appear, but there is a distinct lack of good fights. This is not necessarily a bad thing.

It was on the third floor that they first encountered Chie’s Shadow.

The room they found her in was a bit more full than the others they’d passed through, what with the occasional punching bag hanging from the ceiling, though there was a general lack of everyday Shadows about the place. Presumably, they were scared of the energetic girl who kept kicking things.

Honestly, Yukiko didn’t blame them. It was easy to see why Chie only had a few friends. Most people just weren’t equipped to keep up with her.

“Chie…” She spoke without thinking, quietly, but it was enough to catch the attention of the Shadow, who immediately stopped what she was doing.

“Yukiko?” The Shadow Chie turned around to face her, eyes a brilliant gold. All Yukiko could think was that they matched the uniform she was wearing. A uniform that should never have been dreamed into existence at all, but it wasn’t like anything this year had gone the way it should have. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m… here to save you. Or… well, the other you.” It was easy enough to pretend that this was the Chie she was used to, so long as she didn’t look her in the eyes, but she wasn't going to be able to avoid that forever, now, was she?

“You’re… here to save me?” Well, she didn’t have to sound so disbelieving about it. “From what?”

Rise blinked at her. “...Have you not seen the fire breathing bugs?”

“Come on, they’re not that strong.” And maybe they weren’t, to the Shadow that had control of this place. But it was still probably better than admitting that they were trying to save Chie from herself. “You just need more training, that’s all!”

There was a flash of blue light, and Yukiko had to move her eyes away from Rise, because Kanzeon’s presence made her dizzy. “Senpai… you do know you’re weak to fire, right?”

Shadow Chie dismissed her concerns with a wave of her hand. “Why are you worrying about that? You know you can rely on me, right?” Like that had anything to do with it. Odds were that they’d end up fighting her by the end of the day.

Yukiko stepped forward, shaking her head. “Still… I want my Chie back.”

She met with sharp golden eyes. “Really? You want someone like that? ...All right, then. Find her if you can.” Shadow Chie strolled off into the farther reaches of the dojo, out of sight before even half a minute had passed, and Yukiko could do nothing but watch her leave.

“...I think I like her,” Ken said, as soon as she was gone.

Ren glanced at him. “Why’s that?”

“She hasn’t complained about me being a kid once.”

Thinking about it… that was sort of unusual for the Shadows they came across. And the Shadow had even said that she wanted to show how reliable she was…

Yukiko pushed those thoughts out of mind. That didn’t matter. Right then, the most important thing was to do what the Shadow had said and find her Chie. The rest could be dealt with later.

Maybe, over time, she’d even figure out what she was supposed to say.

* * *

  
  


One of the things that Ken had needed to get used to since coming to Inaba was the fact that, unlike the ones he saw in Tartarus, the Dice Shadows here could explode.

He wasn’t sure why. There wasn’t any particular reason why these ones should have been able to explode when the others couldn’t, or why those never exploded while it felt like the ones here always did. It was just a thing that happened, and with Shadows, that was by far the most explanation that he could ever hope to get.

“One of these days, Kanji-kun, I hope you’ll remember not to try throwing things at them,” Yukiko grumbled. “They all react the same.” Taking little, if any damage, and then enveloping the area in an explosion.

“I know…” He replied. “Just… thought it could be different, this time.”

“I mean, the ones back in Iwatodai didn’t explode,” Ken pointed out. As little as that mattered when they were hours away from Iwatodai, and Tartarus had been gone for a year and a half. “It… wasn’t a fun surprise, once I got here.”

“Yeah, you should probably just attack these from as far away as possible,” Rise said. “Just because they don’t mess up the walls or anything doesn’t mean that it wouldn’t hurt to get caught in them.” Truer words had never been spoken.

“I dunno why they do that,” Teddie commented, poking at the spot where one of the dice had been. “I mean, they weren’t even all that hurt, were they?”

Kanji shrugged. “Maybe they just don’t like us.”

The sad thing was, that might have actually worked as an explanation. Ken wasn’t entirely sure that ordinary Shadows could go as far as feeling spiteful, but it was the best reason he could think of that they might have a self-destruct function, let alone actually use it.

Ren sighed and readjusted his glasses. “Let’s just… avoid the dice.”

None of them even considered disagreeing with him.

* * *

  
  


**_“Are you going to spend time with those friends of yours again?”_ ** Yukiko had to force herself not to look up when she heard Chie’s voice, despite logically knowing that her friend was nowhere near the area. They hadn’t even found another powerful Shadow to fight yet!

Hearing her own voice in reply wasn’t feeling any less surreal, either.  **_“That’s the plan. Sorry I can’t take you along- this is kind of a short-notice thing.”_ **

**_“You know, I’ve always wondered what you guys do together.”_ ** Words that had come up in many a conversation, and, in other circumstances, would probably have kept happening until long after there was no longer a murderer in Inaba. **_“Why can’t I ever come with you?”_ **

**_“It’s… complicated.”_ ** Had her words really sounded that fake?  **_“But it’s important that I do this.”_ **

**_“...All right.”_ ** The voices faded away once again, leaving an empty hallway that was bound to be filled with Shadows.

Naoto stopped beside her. “...Senpai? Did the two of you… ever have a conversation like that?”

Yukiko nodded. “It… happened a lot of times,” She admitted, twirling her fan in her hand. “I… wasn’t sure how to explain what we were doing to her, so… I didn't.”

In hindsight, that maybe hadn’t been the best way to handle things. But what else was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like any of the others had told their families about what was happening, as if the most important thing in the world could be to keep this world a secret. As if something horrible would happen the second one of their parents heard the truth.

...Of course, in hindsight, that could probably be blamed at least partly on the fact that Ren never talked about his parents at all and that Ken had a strained relationship with his uncle, but also she’d been sort of nervous that Chie would find her way through the television. Which happened anyway, albeit a lot less on purpose than Yukiko had expected.

Ken paused. “...You know, this might be why we don’t have a lot of friends.”

Ren glanced at him. “What do you mean?”

“It’s easier to list the people in SEES with friends outside the group than the ones who didn’t. Also, does anyone here besides Ren-san have good friends who aren’t involved in this?”

Well. Technically, Yukiko could probably count Yosuke, or Ai, or Kou and Daisuke, except that she’d never really been all that close to them. They’d just… existed in the same circles, or something like that. They got along, but… she wouldn’t call them good friends.

“There’s… Naoki, sort of,” Kanji offered, which was honestly more than she’d expected to hear from him. “I mean, we study together, and stuff. That counts, right?”

“Ken-kun, are you saying that, if we want friends, we should tell them about this stuff?” Rise asked. “Because… I dunno how I’d even describe it to people. It’s just…” She trailed off. “...I can’t even say how I can’t describe it.”

Ken just shrugged, which was sort of the expected response, and didn’t offer any kind of solution. But then, Yukiko didn’t think they could expect one.

After all, he didn’t really have friends outside this group and SEES, either.

* * *

  
  


Eventually, when they reached a new floor, Rise paused. “...Rise-san? What is it?” Ren asked, deciding that the Navigator was much more important to listen to than a rehash of one of the self-defense courses that had taken place by the riverside that summer.

“I… think that the Shadow might be here on this floor.” Oh. This was one of those floors. “And… there’s something really strong, too.”

“Could you lead us to it?” He asked. “I mean, we probably shouldn’t bother looking for the stairs, if there’s something here we’re probably supposed to fight… and stuff…” It just fit the pattern, and there wasn’t much reason not to follow said pattern, given how it had gotten them this far.

“Sure, no problem. We just have to take a right at the next turn up ahead… Oh, and watch out for Rare Shadows on the way! There’s a lot of them!”

Oh, good. Spending money to make up for the bandages lost dealing with the aftermaths of exploding dice. And beetles that set things on fire. And that one tank that Teddie had almost tripped into. Despite the relatively bright and cheerful colors, this place was a deathtrap.

Still… the golden hands very definitely fit with the dojo’s aesthetic, if in the most expensive way possible. There was certainly something to be said for consistency.

And maybe picking up money would help him not to worry about the fight ahead. That would be great.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shadow Chie probably would have mentioned something about the presence of a bunch of kids, but Yukiko was in the party, and she got priority in terms of reactions. For obvious reasons.
> 
> I will never stop complaining about the dice exploding. They didn't used to do that, but now they do, and it's annoying. So many castle runs cut short...
> 
> Like, I'm pretty sure a lot of the reason things are kept secret from the adults is that none of the party wants their parents to worry about them, and also they don't want to be grounded forever for buying weapons, but Ken and Ren have by far the most reason for it.


	96. In Which There Is A Wheel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At this point, everyone's basically gotten used to randomly having to fight powerful Shadows on their way up a dungeon. That doesn't make it any less annoying.

According to Rise, the room that they needed to go to was on the far right of the floor. Which was odd, usually when given the option they ended up going left, but apparently this was a thing.

“We… have everything we need, right?” Ren asked, adjusting his glasses.

“We haven’t exactly dropped anything on our way through,” Ken pointed out. “Well… Kanji-san, you haven’t dropped anything, have you?”

“Why’d you ask me?”

“Naoto-san’s really responsible, Teddie can carry things inside himself, Rise-san doesn’t fight, and we all know better than to give Amagi-san stuff while she’s like this.” At least, he hoped they knew better. They might not have. He’d known better, at least.

“Look, I didn’t lose anything, so drop it, all right?” Kanji reached for the door, which slid open before he could even touch it. “...This place is weird.”

“You do mean relative to other locations here, correct?” Naoto asked. “I… would hope you weren’t just figuring this out for yourself.”

Huh. So she did have a sense of humor. Ken had been sure she did- even Aigis and Mitsuru knew how to make jokes, once in a blue moon- but he hadn’t had the chance to hear much of it from her. She was just a bit too reserved for that.

Maybe she’d open up with a bit more time, that had been the only remedy for a lot of the issues with SEES, in which case this was a very good sign.

They walked into the room, where Shadow Chie was sitting on a bench with her arms crossed. She barely looked up as they approached her. “Took you long enough.”

Ken wasn’t certain how quickly she’d expected them to make it there- they’d tried going as fast as possible, Yukiko wouldn’t stand for less, but they kept tripping over dice that proceeded to explode.

“So, now what?” Kanji asked, clearly just as annoyed by how long this was taking as everyone else. “You gonna throw something at us? A snake, a hand…”

Once again, it came to mind that the forms Shadows took could be confusing. The one that made the most sense was Teddie, and when they’d first met, he’d been an empty costume.

Shadow Chie blinked. “Why would you throw snakes at people?”

“We know there’s another strong Shadow in this room,” Rise pointed out. “So... do we have to fight it, or not?”

“Well, now that you bring it up…” She snapped her fingers, and the room flashed, revealing a Shadow that Ken thought Fuuka had called a Mach Wheel back when Minato had taken the group back to Yabbashah for reasons still unknown. Maybe. Most Shadows of a type tended to look the same. “With all the noise you’ve been making, I bet you’re all really strong! So this should be no problem!”

Not counting Teddie, this was easily the most supportive Shadow that Ken had ever met. Not that there was a very long list of Shadows with the ability to speak, but the fact remained. Even when she was setting a powerful opponent on them, Shadow Chie was still almost encouraging.

Then the wheel drove at them, and he was forced to abandon that line of thought entirely.

* * *

  
  


The wheel couldn’t be hurt by physical attacks.

This was not, technically, a new occurrence. Ren had encountered plenty of Shadows before that couldn’t be hurt by physical attacks- dice among them, and those exploded. But this was the first time he’d encountered such a powerful one, let alone one that was thrown at him by the Shadow who was ostensibly in charge of the place.

It probably went without saying that they’d discovered this quality of the Shadow the hard way, by trying to stab it only for nothing to happen. It also should have gone without saying that, by this point, Ren was utterly sick of it, and also sort of worried that they were somehow going to run out of gum despite how many packs he’d bought the other day.

And then, at the first lightning bolt from Ken, it fell over and actually could be hurt.

“I am never going to get how this works…” Kanji mumbled.

“Why question it?” Ken shot back. “Just hit it!”

“It’s a good thing it’s lightning it’s weak to,” Rise commented, “And not something else. Most of you can use it, after all.”

Ren decided to take that as a hint to switch to a lightning Persona, even as Naoto readied a Ziodyne of her own. Between the four of them, they could probably make quick enough work of the wheel, so long as they stopped to eat something afterwards. Sure, odds were they’d drink enough soda to completely justify the group policy of buying out the vending machines in the shopping district every week, but this was why they had that policy to begin with.

The next person the wheel crashed into was Yukiko, who was bowled over. “Yuki-chan!” Teddie called out. “Don’t worry, I’ll fix it!”

“I can heal myself,” She bit out, Konohana Sakuya appearing above her. “You take care of everyone else.”

“A- all right…”

Ren was forced away from listening in any further by the wheel turning its attention to him. He quickly fired a Zionga, which did very well to solve the problem.

Sure, this was far from the easiest fight they’d ever had… but all things considered, it could have been a lot worse.

* * *

  
  


In this battle, everyone had one of two roles- lightning or healing duty. Yukiko wasn’t sure how Koromaru was so good at handling medicine and Soma bottles, but apparently that was one of his many, many talents.

Even if she hadn’t yet given up on puzzling out just how smart Ken’s dog was, this really wasn’t the time to wonder about it, though, as she was also on healing duty, and this time Ken was enjoying himself throwing lightning around too much to back up her and Teddie.

Which was a new occurrence. Normally, Ken handled most of the group’s healing himself, but now he was spending just as much time attacking. Yukiko wasn’t sure whether she should have taken it as him having faith in her ability to keep everyone healthy, or as him no longer trusting them to be able to properly annihilate their foes.

“Senpai, Kanji-kun’s been hit!” Still, at least she was being kept busy. Even if it was mostly through Mediarama. Or just Diarama, most of the time.

“I- I’ve got it.” Just a little touch of magic, and everything was going to be all right again. Hopefully. Was this what it felt like to be Ken? Like everyone’s fates were resting in her hands?

The moment Kanji’s wounds were healed, he jumped right back into firing bolts of lightning, words of thanks shouted back over his shoulder as he continued his tirade against their constantly-moving target. A lot of why the only ones who attacked were the ones who could use lightning was the fact that they only had so many soft drinks to pass around.

For a moment, nobody needed to be healed. Yukiko wasn’t optimistic enough to let herself think this could last for the whole battle, but it was nice to have that moment to catch her breath.

Teddie was hopping around happily throwing his magic at anyone who needed it, and Koromaru had apparently decided that what everyone needed was a nice dose of Sukukaja. And maybe they did. Yukiko didn’t know. Thinking about that sort of stuff wasn’t her job.

The whole battlefield was laid out before her, and it was a mess. Lightning flying everywhere, Teddie was using ice in places to get around faster… honestly, it was almost a surprise that no part of the floor had ended up on fire, except that nobody was throwing around any Agi-adjacent spells at the moment, and also it had been previously proven that the place was fireproof.

And yet, despite this clear view of the battlefield… something moved behind her.

She turned, and there was a flash of yellow, and a hand wrapping around her wrist. Before she could say anything, she was dragged out into the hallway, the door back to the room with the wheel closing itself behind her. “H-hey! Chie!”

“Come on!” The Shadow kept tugging at her, and Yukiko couldn’t do anything else but follow. Physical body strength had never been her strong suit- her combat style was to burn things, and then treat any injuries to her friends that might have resulted from careless casts of Maragion.

She was starting to regret that, if only because she was reluctant to set any part of her best friend on fire, even if it was one that was dragging her through a place filled with surprisingly-silent Shadows. Sure, it might have solved some of her immediate problems, but odds were it would end up just raising more issues. “What are you doing?”

“We never get to spend any time together,” The Shadow said, as if that explained anything about this at all. “Do you… not care about me anymore?”

Whatever gave her that idea? “Of course I care! I-” Well, she couldn’t say she wouldn’t have been there if she didn’t, because she had a very strong aversion to letting anyone die if she could prevent it. “...That’s why I haven’t lit you on fire yet.” That was a perfectly reasonable response to being grabbed by a Shadow, after all, even if it did look like a person.

...She was never, ever going to tell Teddie that she’d thought that.

“You wouldn’t do that.” Shadow Chie sounded completely confident, even as she pulled Yukiko through a door and up a flight of stairs. “You’re too nice to set anyone on fire!”

There were so many ways that Yukiko could have responded to it. Probably all of them would have been better than just letting her friend’s Shadow drag her to wherever she wanted to go.

But she didn’t respond, and was just pulled into another section of the dojo entirely.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The midboss took a bit of thinking about, but I decided on the Mach Wheel mostly because it can actually be found in the Secret Laboratory and would be sufficiently annoying to fight to distract Rise.
> 
> Odds are, nobody's going to figure out what's happened until the fight's over and they realize that none of them have seen Yukiko at all in the past eight minutes.


	97. In Which Yukiko Has A Bad Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Well, worse than the day has already been going for her, at least.
> 
> This isn't really saying much, but there you go.

Yukiko had always accepted, somewhat, that the Shadow in charge of an area generally had some sort of control over that area. It was the only reason she could think of for Shadow Rise messing with the lights, the various voices heard over the areas, and of course the powerful other Shadows that could be faced within.

But she’d never realized just how far that control went before Chie’s Shadow pulled her down a hallway, and up some stairs, and while she wasn’t Rise, she was sure that the dojo had more floors to it than this.

And yet, the door in front of them slid open, to reveal the Chie that Yukiko knew, sitting on the floor wrapped up in her favorite green jacket. She glanced up, blinking brown eyes at her.

“Yukiko? What are you doing here?”

“Being kidnapped, apparently.” This was the second time this year, when before the number of abductions had been at a total of zero. And this wasn’t even the strangest thing that had happened to her in the past year, just the one people had a chance of believing. “She could at least have waited until we had our snack break…”

Still, at least she had an emergency pack of gum in her pocket in case things went further downhill. Not that she had complete faith in her ability to save herself and Chie with just some chewing gum and her Persona, but it was far, far better than nothing.

“You have snacks?”

“I had snacks.” And then Rise had suggested carrying the bag for her so she could fight better, and Yukiko hadn’t been able to think of a good reason to refuse, because being abducted by her best friend’s Shadow was something she’d never have been able to suspect. “I don’t now.”

“Aw…” Chie sighed, resting her head on her knees. “I’m hungry. I haven’t had anything to eat since… um…”

“Yesterday?” Or, at least, she hoped it was yesterday.

“It was yesterday,” The Shadow agreed, the first words she’d spoken since arriving in the room. “But food can wait, can’t it? That’d just get in the way of being able to spend time together!”

“Humans need food to live, Chie,” Yukiko reminded her.

Her Chie paused. “Wait… why are you calling her by my name?”

“That…” There really was no easy answer to that.

“Oh? That’s simple.” Shadow Chie leaned back, casually, as if she thought herself invincible. “I’m Satonaka Chie.”

“What are you talking about? Of course you’re not! I’m Satonaka Chie!” This was… early. Yukiko wished she had powers that were a better fit for the current situation, but the only thing she could think of that would help was getting one of the Chies to stop talking, and she couldn’t cast Makajam. If she could, odds were a lot more of these could have been settled without a fight.

“Right. Because you’re me. And I’m you.” Something told her that this wasn’t making the situation any better. “And that’s why you should listen to what I have to say.”

Chie’s eyes narrowed. “Go ahead. Why am I here? Why is Yukiko here?”

“Why shouldn’t she be here?” Was the Shadow’s reply. “She’s supposed to rely on us, right? How can she do that if she’s not here?”

Yukiko wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting from the day, but that was very definitely not it.

“So… you thought the best way to get my attention was kidnapping me?” Then again, that did seem like an idea her Chie would come up with, if her moral compass was to start malfunctioning. And morality seemed to be one of those things that Shadows didn’t really care about unless it directly affected their human, so… actually, as much as she hadn’t been expecting this, she wasn’t entirely sure why she was surprised, either.

“Well, it worked, didn't it?” She really, really wasn’t sure how she hadn’t seen this coming. This was definitely a response that Chie would give. “And… now you’re here. That’s the important thing, right?”

The Chie that Yukiko was more familiar with pushed herself up. “Why would you say that! Yukiko- she doesn’t have to be here if she doesn’t want to?”

“Why not? Don’t you want her here? Don’t you want her to be able to depend on you? Like I said, she can’t do that if she’s not here.”

“...Not like this.” Chie clenched her fists, though Yukiko was pretty sure that she was more likely to kick her Shadow than to punch her. It’d achieve the same results, either way. “Why would you think I’d want that?”

“Because I want that,” The Shadow stated as clearly as possible. “And I’m you.”

“No- no, I don’t want that!” Chie insisted. “And you can’t say that I do! You’re not me!”

...Yukiko wasn’t sure what else she’d been expecting.

* * *

  
  


As distracting as the battle was, once the Mach Wheel had finally faded into nothingness, it wasn’t hard for them to realize that they hadn’t seen Yukiko in actual minutes. In hindsight, they probably should have noticed sooner that they weren’t being healed as often as they had been.

“What could have happened to her?” Naoto asked. “There aren’t a lot of possibilities, short of a Shadow coming in and abducting her in the middle of the fight…”

Ren paused. “Isn’t she friends with the person who’s stuck here? All of those voices that we keep hearing… They won’t stop talking about her.”

Even her voice had sounded a few times, and it had been weird, to hear Yukiko’s voice coming from someplace they couldn’t see while Yukiko was right there. The voices they heard while exploring were strange, but at least it hadn’t been the voices of any of them.

Rise had not dismissed Kanzeon since the end of the fight. This was probably a good thing. “There’s… something going on a few floors up. We should hurry.”

Like they hadn’t been hurrying before. Like Ren hadn’t been pushing for some amount of urgency for the sake of not having to watch another person die. Like everyone hadn’t always agreed with him when he said they needed to handle this as soon as possible.

“So… Yuki-chan got taken by Chie-chan’s Shadow?” Teddie sounded more confused and distressed by this than anyone else did. “That doesn’t sound good!”

Ren silently wondered if the bear was aware of just how much of an understatement that was.

“You don’t think Yukiko-senpai being taken was enough for Chie-senpai to reject her Shadow, do you?” Rise asked.

Ren glanced at her. “Shouldn’t you know? You’re the Navigator?”

She looked to the ground, face still slightly obscured by Kanzeon’s visor. “It does make sense… I just really, really wish that it didn’t.”

* * *

  
  


When Chie’s Shadow first took to her stronger form, despite the seriousness of the situation, Yukiko still couldn’t help but laugh a little.

“She- she looks like a banana!” She gasped out. “Oh! Look, Chie! There’s a smiley face!”

Chie was not in a position to appreciate the smiley face. Chie was stumbling around, as though something had suddenly made her dizzy, and at once the seriousness of the situation was brought back to Yukiko.

Of course her friend was having trouble staying upright. She hadn’t really been able to stand while Ken, Ren, and Koromaru fought her Shadow, either.

The only thing she could do was help Chie as best as possible. Likely by taking her and beating a hasty retreat, because she wasn’t sure that this was a fight she could win on her own. She’d never tried fighting something entirely on her own before, and starting with her best friend’s Shadow? Maybe not the best idea.

“Come on, Chie.” She took her friend’s hand, and tried not to think about how, just minutes before, her Shadow had done the same thing, and that was why they were in this situation.

“Where are we going…?”

“I don’t know. Out.” Away from the shadow who had sparks of electricity at the ends of her fingertips, who was casting them with a baleful glare, who she didn’t think she could win against unless she had at least one friend backing her up, preferably Ken. “Let’s go.”

“What, are you trying to get away from me?” The Shadow’s voice had turned mocking, the crack of a whip heralding a web of lightning in their direction. “You can’t run away from your own thoughts, Chie!”

“Don’t listen to her,” Yukiko muttered to Chie, pulling her away from the net of Maziodyne, and casting a wary glance at the snowflakes beginning to spiral around the Shadow’s other hand.

Of course the Shadow of her best friend would be able to use her elemental weakness.

The door opened, and they stumbled through just before it would have been frozen shut by a Mabufudyne.

That sheet of ice would probably be broken a few seconds later by an enraged Shadow, because that was the kind of thing that tended to happen in this situation. But by that point, hopefully Chie and Yukiko would be down the stairs and on their way to freedom, or at least to finding the others so they could help deal with the problem.

And… then maybe they could try and work things out. That was… how this sort of thing was supposed to go… right?

* * *

  
  


Some time after the defeat of the Mach Wheel and the group setting out in search of Yukiko as well as Chie, Ken heard a loud crashing sound.

He looked up to see Yukiko running towards them, pulling along Chie and followed closely by… a Shadow with a banana for a head.

Every time he thought that he’d experienced enough to not be surprised by these things, it seemed like the world just delighted in proving him wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shadow Chie is a very easy Shadow, design-wise, to make fun of. Add in Yukiko's sense of humor, and the chapter gains some much-needed levity before the obligatory thundersnow.
> 
> Ken isn't having the best day, either, but he's pretty jaded to this sort of stuff by now, so it's more of a mild shock than anything else. He'd have been more surprised if Chie showed up having gotten a Persona without a fight.


	98. In Which There Is A Battle In A Crowded Hallway

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is probably not the place for a big, important battle, but sometimes you just don't have a choice, really.

Yukiko’s friends were quick to put themselves between the Shadow and herself and Chie. It was something that was only to be expected, but it was still kind of strange to think about. Particularly given how, just a week ago, if someone had told her that she’d ever be in this sort of situation, she would have incinerated them for making such a tasteless joke.

And now, here they were. Watching as Chie’s Shadow took on the combined forces of the shockproof Kanji and the cold-resistant Teddie.

As Ken summoned Kala-Nemi to heal them. “Um…” Chie tugged on Yukiko’s sleeve. “Did Amada-kun just...?”

“That’s how he uses his Persona,” She explained. “You get used to it after a while.”

“...That’s real messed up.”

Well. She wasn’t wrong about that. But apparently that was how Ken did things, how he’d done them since long before they met, and it was clearly working for him, so it didn’t feel like it was worth making a fuss about. Yet. Maybe once they no longer had a murderer to worry about.

“I dunno if you have room to talk about that,” Rise commented. “Teddie, careful of that lightning!- I mean, you’re the one whose Shadow turned into an… um.”

Yeah, there really wasn’t a good way to describe it. Nothing tasteful, at least, but then, it wasn’t like any of their Shadows had been tasteful. “A banana?”

“...You know what? Sure. Let’s go with that. If only because there’s kids around.” Right. None of them wanted to deal with those kinds of questions, particularly not from Ken, Ren, and Teddie. Some things just didn’t need to be talked about with children.

And yes, Yukiko was perfectly aware that they’d already exposed said children to a rainbow-mosaic stripper. It was the principle of the thing.

“Look, I didn’t mean for that to happen!”

“I know that. No one ever means for this kind of stuff to happen. It just does, no matter what, because when someone who looks just like you shows up and starts pressing your buttons… it’s really not something that’s meant to end well.”

“Chie. It’s… it’s all right.” Yukiko wasn’t sure where her own words were coming from, but she somehow knew that she had to say them now, or let the chance pass by for something she would always regret not being able to have. “I… haven’t handled this very well, either.”

It felt, even as she said it, like a massive understatement. Like there were a hundred ways that she could have handled things better, even if she could barely think of any at the time.

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I… my Shadow… She said that I was relying on you too much. Not in those exact words, but...” It had been pretty heavily implied, and just as difficult to argue with. “And… maybe I took that a bit too far. Even if I was busy trying to solve the case, I… didn’t have to stop relying on you entirely.” She just… hadn’t known what else to do. “And even if I did… I could have said something.” It wasn’t like she’d ever been explicitly told to keep her powers secret, after all. The fact that she had them just… never came up.

“I… don’t think I would have believed you,” Chie pointed out. “And- and I still shouldn’t-”

“It’s all right. We can work something out later.” Sure, they should have noticed their problems, and maybe done something about them, a lot sooner, but… better late than never, right? “I just need to go… deal with her, first.” The Shadow had Bufudyne, and that could be a bit of a problem, but Yukiko was sure that she could handle it.

She’d help defeat Chie’s Shadow, the two of them could then work out their friendship… and then maybe everything would be all right.

“Do you… think you can?” Was it Chie or Rise who asked that question? She couldn’t tell.

“I have to do this,” She replied, neatly dodging the question of whether or not it was possible. She raised her hand, and felt something click, that she’d never even realized was out of place.

“Dance, Amaterasu!”

* * *

  
  


When Ken gave it some thought, this was probably one of the more impressive ways that someone’s Persona could transform. He wasn’t entirely certain it reached first place- he’d only been present for two beforehand, and one of those was his own- but there was definitely something to be said for how Yukiko’s first action upon gaining a new Persona was to light fires.

Then again, it was Yukiko. Lighting fires was kind of what she did. He wasn’t sure why he was surprised. Maybe it was because they were fighting in a crowded hallway.

The good news was, this meant they presumably had less to worry about when it came to being encased in ice, so long as Yukiko herself was careful not to get caught up in a Bufudyne.

The bad news was, Ken did not have that much faith that Yukiko would be able to not get caught up in a Bufudyne. Any strategy that involved someone being able to consistently dodge their weakness was a plan that clearly needed some refining.

Still… that was why he was there. “Mediarahan.” As strong as this Shadow was, there was very little that Diarahan couldn’t fix. Failing that, Recram usually worked.

When that didn’t work… He didn’t like thinking about that.

An avalanche of ice came crashing down. Without being told, Teddie ran forward to shield Yukiko from the blow. Given how resistances and immunities weren’t the same thing, Ken would have been more than a bit upset if not for how it covered for Yukiko’s weakness. Even if he was sure that Koromaru could keep throwing fire at the Shadow just fine, if she said that she needed to do this, then he’d do whatever he needed to to support her.

“I think Garu might work better than fire right now, actually,” Rise’s voice spoke up. “Ren-kun, Naoto-kun, do you think the two of you could handle that?”

Naoto nodded, and blasted the Shadow off of her tower with a Garudyne. “How long should I keep doing this?”

“Until she puts a Wall up.” It went without saying that she would probably put a Wall up. Every sufficiently powerful Shadow that had a weakness, whenever that weakness was exploited, immediately jumped to setting a Wall up.

It was annoying, especially in a group where they hadn’t managed to pick up any Break spells, with the exception of Ken’s Psy Break, which wasn’t particularly useful in this exact situation, or whatever Ren had on his current selection of Personas, which was ever-rotating and had roughly an eighty-percent chance of containing whatever they needed, which didn’t actually translate that well to having what they needed when they needed it.

Naoto managed to get in one more Garudyne before the Wall went up, which was a lot better than nothing.

“Rise-san, could you tell us when that Wall goes down again?” Ren asked. “I think I’ve got a good Persona for it, but...”

“You can count on me!” Ken didn’t envy her for having to properly direct them in battle in a crowded hallway, but she seemed to be making the best of it.

Still. This bit wasn’t important to him. What was important was that he kept healing them.

* * *

  
  


A big part of why Chie’s Shadow was defeated as relatively quickly as she was was probably because they’d been fighting in a crowded hallway and were able to eventually pin her down against a dead end. The reason it still took as long as it did probably had to do with how occasionally one of them would peel off from the group to chase after a randomly appearing Opulent Hand, which understandably acted as a pretty major distraction from what they were actually meant to be fighting.

Eventually, though, Shadow Chie was back to her original self, dojo uniform and all, leaning against the wall she’d been backed up into with an unblinking golden stare.

“I don’t… really know what I’m supposed to do next,” The regular Chie admitted, curling in on herself just a little. Yukiko turned to her.

“You’re supposed to… go and talk to her, I guess. I mean, that’s what all of us did… except Ren-kun and Ken-kun, anyway. I’m not sure what they did…”

“I sort of talked to mine,” Ren said. “I think. I mean, it was a dream, but it also felt really real? It’s… where I met the people Marie-san lives with.” So probably more real than a regular dream.

“...Mine never showed up,” Ken stated. “Not… not like this, anyway.” He shuffled awkwardly in place. “But… talking’s usually a good idea.”

“I… all right.” Chie stepped forward, looking her other self straight in the eye. “Yukiko’s my friend. And I… didn’t like that she wasn’t sharing everything with me anymore. I sort of get it now, I wouldn’t believe this if I wasn’t here myself, but… it wasn't fun, you know? And- and that’s a problem, and we really should work that out at some point, but… it’s there. Just cause I wasn’t going to do anything with it… doesn’t stop it from existing. Stop you from existing. Whatever.”

Kanji glanced at Yukiko. “Chie-senpai doesn’t have much of a way with words, does she?”

“No, but she’s very good at speaking what’s on her mind, most of the time. I’ve… always sort of envied her for that.”

The Shadow glowed blue, and then was gone, replaced with a Persona as yellow as the uniform she’d worn.

This was probably a good sign for the future.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There were so many places I wanted to put Amaterasu before this, starting with Mitsuo, but it just never seemed like a good time until now. And this still doesn't seem quite right, but at this point it feels like the best that I'm ever going to get. That seems to be a recurring trend here.
> 
> Ken gets Psy Break because just about everyone in SEES gets a relevant Break spell if one exists, even if the general lack of generic Shadows with a known resistance to Psy means it might not actually see that much use. It's not like I have to worry about him coming off as too overpowered when he starts off having gone through the events of one game already.


	99. In Which Food Is Made

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With Chie rescued, things are able to settle down, just a bit, albeit with everyone more than a little exhausted.
> 
> This fact does not go unnoticed.

Dealing with Shadows was always a taxing endeavor, and the misadventure in the dojo was no exception. If anything, worrying about Yukiko had only made everything worse.

As a result, Ken was exhausted when he got back to the house, Koromaru walking right behind him. “Big Bro?” Nanako glanced up. He shoved his spear behind his back and hoped that she wouldn’t ask about it. “...Are you okay? You look tired. Koro-chan, too.”

“I’m fine,” He insisted. “It’s just… been a really long day.” But then, when wasn’t it a long day, when there were Shadows to deal with?

...Actually, he knew the answer to that. It was when the Dark Hour was still around, because then all of the big, nerve-wracking things tended to happen at night. Daytime was spent napping in order to make up for all the sleep he’d miss trying to obliterate Shadows with Hamaon.

Nanako nodded without saying anything. Ken wasn’t sure if that meant he should have been relieved or not. “...Dad’s not home yet. Are you gonna be okay for dinner?”

“I should be able to help,” He said. “I just need to put some things away first.” Again he had to just hope that she didn’t think to question him about the fact that he owned a spear.

“All right.” She didn’t question the fact that he had a spear. He wasn’t sure if that meant she hadn’t noticed it, or that she was just ignoring it and figuring that it was just some sort of magic stuff. Which wouldn’t exactly be wrong. If she asked, he’d probably just go with that.

Getting upstairs and putting his things away where they wouldn’t be seen was something that he had a lot of practice with, and as far as he could tell, he hadn’t failed yet. Once he was certain that the only way someone would see his weapon or his bag filled with Soma and magical items was if they were specifically looking for them, Ken nodded happily to himself and hurried back down the stairs.

“Okay, so, what do you want for dinner?” He wasn’t sure how much they had on the grocery front, but it wouldn’t be the first time the two of them managed to scrape something together, and it wasn’t like they particularly had to worry about running out of vegetables.

Really, the garden was growing so well, it was almost concerning. It just didn’t seem like something worth complaining about when their magical effects were so helpful.

“Well… I guess we should be doing something with the veggies, but maybe you’re sick of them by now? Since you take them so often?”

He shrugged. “Not really… Mostly I just share them with my friends. Teddie really likes the tomatoes.” Which was good, because they grew a lot of tomatoes. It was a cheaper alternative to Chewing Souls. “Of course, Teddie eats almost anything…” Except for the gum that Yukiko had borrowed from Chie, once. But that was apparently a bit of an acquired taste, so he wasn’t sure it counted. It was hard to tell, when it came to Teddie. “Besides, we don’t really cook them, so it’s completely different.” Yukiko’s cooking had supposedly made it to edibility, but only just, and she’d said she’d need a lot more practice before she was comfortable sharing with the rest of them.

As Ken remembered some of Fuuka’s earlier attempts, he could only be glad that she recognized this.

“...So, should I look up some recipes on Dad’s computer, then?” Nanako asked. “I don’t think he’s changed his password yet.”

Of course not. Hopefully, he’d never realize that he’d written it down and then left it lying out. “Well… he’s not going to be here for a while, right?”

“I don’t think so…”

“It should be fine, then. All we need to do is print out the recipe we want. Koromaru, you’ll warn us if he gets back, right?” Sure, they probably wouldn’t get into too much trouble, but it was best to be safe.

“Arf!”

Decision made, they set out in search of a decently simple recipe that could be made mainly with fresh vegetables.

* * *

  
  


By the time Ryotaro got home, the children had managed to successfully fry some vegetables. He wasn’t sure how they had so many- nobody had been shopping recently, and the garden he had taken care of with his sister when he was Nanako’s age had never produced anywhere near that much- but he figured that it wasn’t something worth asking about. If Ken and Nanako had stolen from the neighbors, he was sure that said neighbors would have let him know about it.

“...I think we made a bit too much,” Ken mused. “Maybe I’ll take some with me for lunch tomorrow.” The kid looked half-asleep, even as he piled food onto his plate.

“I dunno if it’d taste as good cold, though,” Nanako pointed out. “...Dad, do fried veggies taste good cold?”

“I think it depends on who you’re asking.” And how well the food had been made in the first place. “But if you like it as it is now, you should be able to eat it.”

The kids nodded along with what he had to say, and Ken moved aside to let Nanako take her share, like he’d done it a hundred times before.

...For all Ryotaro knew, Ken and Nanako could have done this a hundred times before. It wasn’t like he always made it back in time for dinner, even when he tried. But that wasn’t something he liked to think about.

The food itself shed no light on the subject. It tasted perfectly average.

* * *

  
  


_ Satonaka Chie: Hey, are you still awake? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: I am. Did you want something? _

_ Satonaka Chie: I was just thinking about how crazy all of this is. Tomoe tells me I can kick pavement hard enough to make it shatter now, and I believe her! _

This was… maybe not something that Yukiko had overly wanted to see at the moment.

_ Amagi Yukiko: ...Maybe don’t try summoning your Persona outside of the TV. On the off chance that it does work, you’ll just get all of us in trouble. _

_ Satonaka Chie: But it’s just so amazing! All this power… but you’ve had yours for a while, haven’t you? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: It’s been about half a year, now. _

Had it really been that long? Sometimes, it felt like only yesterday that she was being saved from herself by a trio of children, none of which entirely knew what they were doing, but all of them being willing to try their hardest to help her anyway.

_ Satonaka Chie: So you’re already used to all this stuff. I’m not. _

_ Amagi Yukiko: Most of us didn’t start off by planning to freeze over the Samegawa. _

_ Satonaka Chie: What makes you think I want to do that? _

_ Amagi Yukiko: You’re kind of predictable like that. _

She received no argument.

* * *

  
  


The first thing Ren realized, the morning after the adventure in the dojo, was that he’d left his daggers out before he fell asleep. Thankfully, his parents had little interest in looking around in his room, or he would have had a lot of awkward knife-related questions to answer.

He wondered if any of the others had to worry about that. Ken, maybe, nobody would expect a thirteen-year-old to be carrying around a spear, let alone be able to use it so expertly, but other than him… Yukiko’s fans could be used for decoration, Teddie’s claws were clearly homemade, Naoto had an actual license to carry firearms, and Kanji… probably just picked up whatever heavy object was closest, if he thought about it.

That was probably something that deserved to be asked about eventually.

Figuring that he probably wasn’t going to have to go into the TV that day, or fend off a mugging, because no one in their right mind would attack a twelve-year-old and actually expect to get anything out of it, he placed the knives in his desk drawer, where if past experience was to be relied on, they could go unnoticed for the foreseeable future.

Weapons hidden someplace where they were unlikely to make another appearance, Ren decided that it was late enough for him to have to figure out his own breakfast, which meant he could pull out some cold steak croquettes and some soda and call it a meal.

It probably wasn’t the healthiest option, if he let himself think about it too much, but the coziness of his room was a much more comfortable place to eat than a cavernous, empty kitchen where the only sign of human habitation was dishes in the sink and the occasional traces of coffee in the pot, detected by scent more than anything else.

Besides, there was enough food in his bag still left over that he could probably eat the rest of it for lunch. It wasn’t like the snacks would still be good in time for the next major incident.

...Well, he hoped they wouldn’t. That would imply a lack of time between major incidents. He wanted to take the chance to rest, and relax, and maybe introduce Chie to Marie more properly, instead of just leaving them as having run into each other once at a chaotic mess by the riverbank and maybe passing each other a few times on the street.

Besides, if the newest Persona User started tagging along with the rest of them- very likely, given her personality- it would be good for Ren to give her an introduction to how he was different from most other Persona Users and that normal was actually something that was completely subjective.

Potential plans for the near future settled- at least that involved the most recent person he rescued- Ren made himself a bit more comfortable under his blankets for the time being and started munching on his leftover snacks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At some point, Ken should probably put more thought into explaining why he has weapons to people. And why he knows how to use them. He hasn't really gotten there yet.
> 
> Chie is all set to enjoy the fact that she now has superpowers. Yukiko is silently begging her not to take too much advantage of the fact that she now has superpowers. Only time will tell which one wins out.


	100. In Which People Should Probably Be Listening to Their First Instincts

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Also, people are starting to notice the presence of animals in Junes. Not the animals themselves, just that there's been something there.
> 
> Given how it's been about six months, it was bound to happen eventually.

The next time Yukiko saw Chie in person was on Monday, when her friend walked right into the classroom as if she didn’t have someone who might or might not have been trying to kill her. “Are you sure you should be here?”

“Why not? No one ever went back to try and get you again, right?” That was an irritatingly good point. “Besides, I lent Yosuke a book last week, and he said he was going to give it back today. Maybe this is something he won’t have wrecked.”

At this point, Yukiko was sort of wondering why Chie even let Yosuke borrow things from her in the first place. It didn’t really seem to be the healthiest thing for their friendship. “...I could have picked it up for you.” If something bad had happened to it, it would probably have been better for Yosuke, too.

“Yeah, but I can take care of myself.”

“I never said you couldn’t. It’s just…” It was easier, if they stayed inside after their ordeals. Getting Konohana Sakuya had been exhausting, even if Amaterasu now burned brighter and more easily than even the driest of timber. “Most of us took some time off, after everything. To… well, to stay safe, but also to get our thoughts back in order.” At least, she assumed that was part of everyone else’s reasoning. She couldn’t tell. She couldn’t read minds.

“But I already know what I’m going to do! I’m going to find the guy that started this whole mess and kick his butt!” Honestly, Yukiko shouldn’t have expected anything less.

“All right, but could you please keep it down? People don’t really know about this. It’ll be easier to surprise the killer if they haven’t had the chance to hear you shouting, you know?”

Before Chie could answer, a bag was plopped down in a nearby seat. “Morning,” Yosuke greeted them. “You two talking about anything interesting?”

The two of them exchanged a glance, turned back to Yosuke, and answered his question as one. “No, not really.”

“All right… did you know they’re finding animal fur on the floors at Junes again? We think it belongs to some sort of wild animal that keeps sneaking in, or maybe people are just smuggling in their pets. What do you think?”

There was definitely no good way for them to answer this.

* * *

  
  


If he’d had more energy, or been thinking a bit more clearly, Ken would probably have picked up groceries on his way home from rescuing Chie. It would have been convenient, particularly with all the extra money that he now had.

But he hadn’t, so instead he was going to do that today, and hopefully he’d pick up enough to last for at least a few more days, more if they visited Aiya’s at any point.

Still, he was focused on searching for the exact perfect tray of sausages when he heard a voice. “Oh, is that you, Ken-chan?”

Kala-Nemi sparkled in irritation and conveyed a strong desire to smite the interloper, but Ken forced himself to turn around with a smile that barely let out any excessive amounts of light, and any that got through could simply be blamed on the ceiling lights. “Hello, Adachi-san. Did you get off work early? Or are you hanging around here to slack off again?”

“Actually… I do have some work here. Apparently, people have been finding animal fur on the floor here for the past six months.”

And yet, none of them had seen Koromaru himself, and none of the cashiers had felt like reporting that they’d sold a package of shrimp to an actual fox. “What kind of fur?”

“We’re not actually sure. That’s not exactly in our actual job description, or anything- we’d tell them to call animal control, but animal control’s busy trying to keep there from being too many stray cats around.”

Personally, Ken felt like maybe animal control was fighting a losing battle on that one. It sort of seemed like there were more cats sitting outside the house every time he left it.

“Well, I hope you can find out what’s going on,” He lied. “I guess you’re here because you think whatever it is might have gotten hungry?”

“Actually, most of the fur so far’s been found in the electronics section…” Adachi trailed off. “...Hey, if anyone asks, you didn’t hear that from me, all right?”

Ken silently debated telling his uncle about his partner’s slips. It probably wouldn’t actually help with Adachi’s competence any, but it might have meant that he got bothered by him less. “Why? Is it supposed to be some kind of secret?”

“More I’m worried he’ll realize I’ve been slacking off… Crap, I said that out loud, didn't I?”

“I won’t tell Uncle so long as you go back to work straight away.” Hopefully, he wouldn’t come back, or at least not until Ken was long gone with his groceries. And could maybe try and do something about Koromaru’s shedding so people would be less likely to connect the appearances of animal fur in Junes with a new kid coming to town with his dog.

It probably said something that this was a thing he gave more thought to than avoiding being accused of murder despite the actual weapons he had tucked away in his room.

“I- right. Thanks, Ken-chan. I owe you one!” Adachi hurried out of the meat section as quickly as a person’s legs could carry them without the assistance of Sukukaja.

No matter how used to him Ken got, something still seemed off about that guy… but at the moment, making sure that he and Nanako had food was probably more important. Kala-Nemi didn’t necessarily agree, but it wasn’t like stalking a police officer was likely to go well.

Maybe he’d ask his uncle about it. Or not. It didn’t seem like anyone else had picked up on it.

He was probably just imagining things.

* * *

  
  


Ren entered the Velvet Room relatively late in the evening, having figured some things out, and having come to a decision because of that. The sun was low in the sky, tinging the streets of the shopping district a pink-orange color that was reminiscent of some kind of fruit, though Ren would have been hard-pressed to name which fruit, exactly, he was reminded of.

This light was something like rain, in that it bled through from reality to the Velvet Room. Colored light pooled on the floor of the train car from exactly one side of it, the other side being the blank white fog that he was just the slightest bit more accustomed to.

Like with any and all weather conditions, the Velvet Room kept rattling on.

“Huh. You’re here later than usual.” Marie popped her bubble gum. Ren still wasn’t sure where she was getting that from, but then, for all he knew, this train had a snack cart that simply never rolled on by while he was in it.

He’d be sort of surprised if that was the case, though. Given the price of using the Compendium, he was sure that Igor wouldn’t do anything to intentionally keep him from spending all his money.

“Well… this is something that… I took a while to think about it,” He admitted. “I mean, I was doing my homework, and then some paper fell out of my textbook, and I saw the list, so…”

Lavenza sat up straighter, her piercing golden eyes glinting even more brightly in the light of the dying sun as she perched on the very edge of her seat. “So… you would like for myself and Marie to fuse for you the Persona that we offered?”

“Th-that’s right. I brought some of the Personas you wanted- Yaksini and Nue.”

For a moment, Lavenza and Marie both looked at him, as if they weren’t entirely certain that he was telling the truth, before the two of them nodded.

“Well, I guess I’ve got time for that tonight,” Marie said, as casually as if she was being asked to step outside for just long enough to get a soda. More casually, even, given that if she left the Velvet Room, she’d probably get paranoid about Igor and Lavenza pulling out her poetry.

...Then again, maybe it wasn’t paranoia if she was right. Ren had never been entirely sure about that.

Igor turned to Lavenza. “This is a hefty project you have taken upon yourself for your first proper Fusion,” He stated.

“I know- but I will not be doing this alone, really. Marie will be helping me. That is the entire reason that I can offer this.”

“...Well, I suppose it would run counter to the Velvet Room’s values if I tried to stop you.”

Ren glanced between the two of them, not entirely sure what they were talking about. “Is… is this going to be dangerous to Lavenza-san, or something?”

“Shouldn't be.” Marie’s tone had not grown any less nonchalant.

Lavenza’s words were remarkably more reassuring. “We both discussed the possibility in depth before agreeing to present it to you. If it posed an unacceptable risk, we would not have suggested it.”

“All right.” He trusted her, as much as he trusted anyone, more even than he trusted some of his own teammates. “If you say so…”

He reached his hand forwards, and two cards appeared, the figures of Yaksini and Nue emblazoned on them in colors straight out of an old oil painting. They floated, for a moment, just above his fingertips, before the girls of the Velvet Room each reached forward and took a card.

In her right hand, Marie held Nue. In her left hand, Lavenza held Yaksini. The two of them turned to each other, made eye contact, and reached out their hands, pressing the cards held within to each other.

Where the cards made contact, a bright light shone. It was either blue or red, but Ren couldn’t tell, which was really weird given how far apart those two colors were. The light was emitted in rays that seemed to envelop both girls, though the ones on Lavenza’s side twisted until they looked less like beams of light, and more like butterfly wings.

The girls stepped back, but the light kept shining, coalescing into the shape of a Persona that was majorly black in color, though it was accented with bits of red and silver.

Silently, the new Persona dipped its head to him, and reached out a hand. Ren took it, and the Persona vanished into card form, slipping into place within his heart, right next to Arsene.

“Izanagi Picaro…” He breathed out, the name settling within him with the faint hum of electricity taking up a background position within his mind, just beneath the darkness that was already there. As if it had always been meant to be there.

“We hope this new Persona will meet your expectations.” Lavenza’s voice was quiet, and not entirely steady, but she still sounded completely sure of what she was saying. But then, it wouldn’t have been Lavenza otherwise.

“If it doesn’t, you can always get rid of it, or whatever.” Marie, meanwhile, wouldn’t be herself if she wasn’t casual and dismissive all the time. “Or come to me. I’ll give you some great Skill Cards.”

It would have been easier for Ren to say he’d take her up on it if he wasn’t aware of just how sorry a state his wallet would be in by the end of it. “I’ll… keep that in mind,” He said instead.

“Do you require any more of our services?” Igor asked, as if his train car hadn’t just been the location of the most visually-impressive lightshow that Inaba had ever seen.

“I don’t think I will. I- actually, I should… probably be getting home soon.” Preferably before his parents did. Even if they never asked questions, it was awkward going in the door when they were already there. Maybe because it was something that just didn’t happen usually.

Ren turned, and stepped out of the rattling train car onto the smooth pavement, the glowing door to the Velvet Room silently shutting itself behind him. The sun was now almost completely gone from the sky.

Satisfied with what he’d received that day, he stuck his hands in his pockets and started the long walk home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look, at some point, they were going to question all of the fur.
> 
> Ken has not been feeding the cats. They just happened.
> 
> Ren gets his Izanagi just in time for that to start being important.


	101. In Which Adachi Acts Like A Detective For Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One important date passes, and another starts to approach.
> 
> Nanako has a question.

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: You gave Satonaka Aki’s phone number. Why? _

_ Amada Ken: She said she wanted someone to talk to about this stuff that hadn’t seen the worst side of her, and I thought they got along pretty well. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Maybe a bit too well. It’s terrifying. Like he picked up a clone somewhere. _

_ Amada Ken: ...Well. Wish him a happy birthday for me, would you? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Tell him yourself. _

* * *

  
  


Naoto supposed she shouldn’t have been surprised. If she could notice the mess that was a team of fully-equipped Persona Users walking through a store they’d successfully infiltrated several times before, of course people who worked in Junes would have discovered traces of animals around.

She volunteered to assist in the investigation, partly to try and keep anyone from realizing who was bringing animals through the building, but mostly to try and keep herself occupied. Even if her role in this case wasn’t necessarily to solve it properly, it was nice being on the scene of a mystery without having to constantly look up for fear of being attacked by birds with lanterns.

“We’ve found multiple different fur samples,” Adachi explained. “Some of them are orange, some of them are white… there’s even some that are blue!”

It was almost surprising, that Teddie’s fur was being counted. He’d always looked more like a costume or a plush toy than an actual animal when he was in it.

But then, Naoto supposed that he’d be happy to hear it, if she ever felt the urge to tell him. It’d be another thing saying that yes, he could fit into this world, Shadow or not.

Not that she could let this on at the moment. What with needing to hide the potential conflict of interest. Instead, she raised an eyebrow at Adachi. “Blue fur? I wasn’t… aware that there were any animal species that possessed blue fur. Certainly not native to Japan.” Well. Technically, she supposed that wasn’t a lie, even if Teddie belonged there more than anywhere else.

“Yeah, that’s the part that’s really confusing everyone. But it does mean that there’s multiple animals for sure, and not just one that’s both orange and white.” So they couldn’t even blame everything on the fox, not that they’d ever want to do that. Alienating a being that offered increasingly-inexpensive healing just wasn’t a good idea.

Still. Things like this proved that Adachi was, in fact, capable of having good ideas. It was enough for Naoto to wonder why he couldn’t have been so helpful with the murders.

At the very least, nobody was going to die from the presence of furry creatures in Junes unless someone was deathly allergic to fur. Or maybe if Teddie forgot why it was a bad idea to try using roller skates indoors, no matter how fast they were.

Still… there was at least one thing she could do to delay them picking up their trail. “Perhaps we should start by ascertaining the origins of the blue fur,” She suggested. “We’ll have to ask Dojima-san when he gets here… where is he?”

“Nanako-chan’s birthday’s in a week and a half. He needed to find a gift for her.” She assumed that Adachi had talked him into it somehow. Another thing he was apparently better at than figuring out who’d gone and murdered two people.

But then… if Naoto had to choose a talent, she had to admit, that one would also have been tempting.

* * *

  
  


Ken and Nanako were sitting together and watching television when she asked him a question. “Big Bro, how do you get magic?”

Ken froze, then very deliberately reached over and ruffled Koromaru behind the ears. “Um… why do you want to know this?” If she’d wanted magic for herself, wouldn’t she have asked sooner? But then, she’d figured out it existed without him realizing.

Or maybe she just hadn’t thought of it yet. “Well… I was just... wondering about it,” She said. “You and Koro-chan are both magic, and so are Ren and Teddie and all your friends. So you have to know something!”

It probably went without saying that Ken didn’t want to lie to Nanako. When he looked after her, he tried to do what the various members of SEES had done for him the year before, once everything had settled down as much as it could and they were all able to communicate with each other… not exactly perfectly, but well enough for their purposes. Basically, once things had cleared up enough that someone could no longer get away with dating three people at once.

“Well…” He really, really didn’t want her to poke into anything that could expose her to Shadows that weren’t Teddie. She was younger than he was when he’d first been exposed to this stuff, and he’d been far from ready. He didn’t always feel ready now. “It’s… it takes a special kind of person.” Someone who could experience the Dark Hour. “Or… getting someone special to help you.” He didn’t know if Chie, or Yukiko, or Rise would have been able to wander around in the Dark Hour before their experiences in the television, and odds were he never would.

“Someone… special…” He wasn’t sure he liked the tone of her voice. “So… you could help people get magic?”

One would argue that all Ken had been doing for the past six month was helping other people get magic. “I mean, I can, but… that’s dangerous. It doesn’t always work, and… people get hurt, if they aren’t ready for it.” And it was probably impossible to truly be ready for it.

Nanako curled in on herself a little. “They do? How bad?”

Ken thought of the exhaustion that tended to set in with those who managed to successfully obtain a Persona, and how they had to take time to recover. He thought of the people who’d face their Shadows, and not managed to accept them. Of people who ended up in the Dark Hour, and lost their minds because of it.

“It’s… really bad.” Bad enough that he’d never encourage anyone to try and get a Persona of their own, though he still wouldn’t stop them from trying. “Most of the ones who can’t manage it… they die.” Was that too much to give to a six-year-old?

“...Oh.” Something told Ken that Nanako wasn’t going to be looking for superpowers any time soon. Which was good, even if he hadn’t wanted to make her upset in the process. “...How’d you get your magic, Big Bro? It’s because you’re special, right?”

Well. He’d spent years surviving the Dark Hour without anyone there to help him, in the same city as Tartarus. He supposed that was more than most people could say, no matter how much SEES had tried to help. “I… sort of. I got my powers on my own, but… I only have as much as I do because my senpai were there to help me.”

She nodded along. “...Big Bro? If I get magic, you’ll help me, right?”

“Of course I will. But… let’s not try and get you any magic until you’re older.”

Maybe it was just the warning he’d given, but she didn’t disagree.

* * *

  
  


Ken had been acting sort of distracted recently. Ren hadn’t given much thought to it, but it had reached the point where Teddie was noticing, so maybe there was something to be concerned about.

“Senpai, are you all right?”

Ken blinked, as if he hadn’t realized that Ren was there despite how they’d been talking to each other for the past fifteen minutes. “Oh, um… I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? It’s just… you don’t really seem…”

“Well, it’s just… I just noticed that… it’s almost October.”

“Almost… October?” It was less than a week away now, but Ren wasn’t entirely sure what the current month had to do with anything. “Do you… not like October?”

Ken shook his head. “It’s… not the month itself, really, but the fourth is… it’s not a good day for me. Mom died that day, and then, a couple of years later, Shinjiro-san…”

Ren remembered that story, sort of. He didn’t think there’d been an actual date involved, and he hadn’t expected that things would line up quite like that, but he supposed that would leave an impression. “So it brings up bad memories.”

“...Yeah. It’d be fine if… if I could just stay in my room or something. I can… even handle school, sort of. It’s just… it’s also Nanako’s birthday.”

Ren couldn’t imagine having to try and be happy for someone while dealing with massive personal issues. It didn’t sound like it would be fun, though. “I guess she doesn’t know?”

“...I don’t want to ruin it for her.” Ken looked at the ground. “I’m not sure what my uncle’s going to do about it. I don’t even know if he knows when, exactly, Mom died, or just… that it happened. If he knew, I think he’d try to help, but…”

“But you’re not sure.” It made sense. From what Ren knew of Ken’s uncle, he seemed fairly distant, even if he was trying. “And… he doesn’t know just how bad it is.” It wasn’t like Ken was going to tell him anything about it.

“I want to trust him.” Ken leaned back, looked up at the sky. “Things don’t… always work out… but he tries, I think. I’m glad he does, even if it’s not… Even if it doesn’t work. At least he’s trying. It’s just not enough.”

“Maybe you should talk to him,” Ren suggested. “I mean, you don’t have to tell him a lot, just… you could try?” Which was more than he would have gotten, in the same situation. Ken didn’t seem to think of himself as lucky like that, but then, he’d spent a year living with his own group of Persona Users.

“...Maybe.” It wasn’t possible to tell if he was actually considering it or not. But then, Ren supposed it didn’t have to matter to him. Only to Ken.

Still, he made a mental note to be extra nice to him for the next couple of weeks, and the two of them had apparently grown closer, according to the Justice Arcana, so he supposed that was the most he could be expected to do.

Still… there went his enjoyment of the rest of the afternoon. He didn’t regret asking, but there were definitely some things that weren’t good for relaxation.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was always going to be a fairly important time in the story, because the dynamics of the Dojima household are important, and this is a good opportunity to explore them in a situation that's serious but not actively imploding.
> 
> Nanako sort of wants magic, but she's going to listen to her Big Bro about this. She assumes that he knows what he's doing. She assumes much.


	102. In Which Ken And Teddie Go Shopping

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The fourth of October is coming up, and that means acquiring birthday gifts for the sake of making Nanako happy.
> 
> If only it could be as simple as that.

“Huh? How do I train?”

Chie nodded. “Yukiko’s been training with me for months, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen you doing anything like that, Ren-kun. You need to train if you want to get stronger.”

Ren was more than willing to dispute that, if only because running to save people from themselves every few weeks or so was more exercise than he’d ever thought he’d get.

He adjusted his glasses. “Well, I… haven’t really thought about training, actually…”

From the look on Chie’s face, it was as though he’d admitted to doing something unspeakable, like hurting Teddie or Nanako. “You don’t train? Then how do you…?”

He assumed she was referring to his knife tricks. Which weren’t really tricks so much as him trying to figure out the best way to stab a given Shadow. Actual lessons weren’t that much help there, since most people who taught that kind of stuff had no reason to think someone would be in a position to stab an eagle or a disembodied mouth.

“It’s just… I kind of figure things out as I go. I don’t really know what kind of Shadows I should be ready to fight…”

“All of them!”

“...What about Teddie?” He didn’t want to fight Teddie. He liked Teddie.

“Wait, he’s a…?” Ren supposed that Chie hadn’t actually been in a position to figure that out on her own yet, particularly given how he looked human about eighty percent of the time.

“I think that’s why he can help us leave and stuff. Maybe.” Or maybe it was just something about him, and it was pure luck that, on their first trip into the TV, Ren and Ken had met possibly the most special Shadow in that entire world. “I’m not really sure.”

“...Okay. We need to be ready to fight every Shadow except Teddie.”

Ren still wasn’t entirely sure about her logic. “How do we do that?”

“By training!” She declared, sounding a lot like her Shadow had on the Midnight Channel.

“I… don’t know how to do that, though.” He’d never really considered it. He was already getting so much exercise his fifth grade self wouldn’t recognize him.

“I can help you!” Chie volunteered. Ren got the feeling he wasn’t getting out of this one.

He also got a Social Link of the Chariot Arcana.

He wasn’t sure which of those things was more important to have.

* * *

  
  


The door to Kanji and Teddie’s room opened, and Teddie glanced up. “Is something wrong?” He asked.

“Not really,” Kanji replied. “Just thought I’d tell you that Ma’s friends are gonna be here later today, and they can be kinda… weird.” This explained nothing. If only because Teddie had no idea what normal was, let alone what would be considered weird by everyone.

“What do you mean?” He was beary diffurent from most people, and so far no one had said they had a problem with him. He just didn’t know what Kanji was talking about.

“Like… I can never understand a word they say. ...Also, the last time I tried listening in, Ma just sent me to bed early, so… if you wanna go out today, you should probably leave now.”

Teddie wasn’t sure what he wanted to do that day. It was nice enough outside- there were still a couple of days until the rain started, at least according to the people who told you what the weather was, but not that much longer- and he’d already finished his homework, but maybe he would have wanted to stay inside and work on his models. Or maybe he’d watch some television. He just didn’t know yet.

“Is anyone else doing things?” If one of the others wanted him around, he could definitely do that.

“...I don’t know. I’ll check.” Kanji pulled out his phone. Teddie wasn’t really sure how phones worked, except that they let you talk with people who were beary far away. He thought he might have wanted one, sort of, since then he could talk to his friends whenever he wanted.

But Renren said phones were expensive, and Kenny said he’d spent all of his money from home on one, so he’d just have to make due with letting the others use theirs.

There was some amount of silence as Kanji continued with his texting. “Huh… Hey, Ted, did you know Nanako-chan’s birthday’s coming up?”

A birthday, Teddie knew, was an anniversary. He knew this because Renren had had his birthday some time back, and Kenny had gotten him a phone. He wasn’t sure why they were important, his teachers at school didn’t like answering questions not related to their subjects beary much, but everyone said that they were.

It was more or less impossible for him to give his honest opinion on the matter, of course. Shadows didn’t have birthdays. So he’d never be acting with all the right information.

Still, while he was going to go furever without celebearating one of his own, he knew that humans, particularly cute, sweet, and tiny ones like Nana-chan, liked birthdays. “It is?”

“Yeah, just a few days from now. Ken’s trying to get something for her, but he’s not sure what, so he’ll probably be out and about for a while. Says he’d be fine if you joined him for a bit. You wanna go with him?”

“That sounds fun!” Maybe he could convince Kenny to stop for snacks along the way. Snacks were always nice. And then they could talk about picking the perfect present!

It probably didn’t matter that he wouldn’t be there to see Mama Tatsumi’s friends. They all lived in the shopping district, anyway. He could see them anytime!

* * *

  
  


Teddie was not having as good of a time as he’d thought he would. There were plenty of reasons for this, most of them small, but one of them was beary, beary big.

Kenny just wasn’t focused on anything. They’d gone up and down the same aisle at Junes three times, and still he hadn’t found anything or decided to look elsewhere. Teddie wasn’t sure if this was how his friend normally did shopping, but it didn’t seem to be all that productive. “Is something wrong, Kenny?”

Kenny blinked, as though he was just noticing that Teddie was there. “Huh? W-why would you think that?” He sounded nervous, for some reason. Sort of like when Koro-chan got into the bags of supplies when he shouldn’t have, and was trying to pretend otherwise.

“You seem kinda distracted. Did something happen?” He could have gotten into a fight with his family again, or his friends could be coming back to Inaba, or he could be having problems with school, except there wasn’t much reason for that to be a problem on a Sunday. Sundays were for relaxing, not worrying about things like school!

Kenny shook his head. “Not recently…”

Was he just having a bad day, then? Bad days were the worst! You could sit around with your beary favorite things and still nothing would make it better. “Then what’s wrong?”

“It’s nothing.” Teddie didn’t need to know a lot about humans to know he was being lied to. Not when just saying those words was enough to make Kenny even more upset. “It’s just… I want Nanako to have a really good birthday, and I don’t know if I can… if I can do that.”

It didn’t seem like it would be that hard for Nana-chan to have a good birthday. That sort of thing was just gifts and stuff, right? There was also probably supposed to be cake involved, but Teddie wasn’t sure there was anyplace in Inaba good for getting cake.

He also wasn’t sure that any of them were trusted to use an oven. Kanji tried cooking, sometimes, but all he knew how to do was simmer things. It all turned out tasty, but it obviously hadn’t been a cake.

Really, though, Nana-chan would love anything her Big Bro gave her. “I bet Nana-chan will be beary happy whatever you do.” Was this reassuring enough? He wasn’t sure. Kenny didn’t seem much happier, but he’d spent the whole day nowhere near as happy as Teddie had expected. Maybe he just wasn’t good at figuring out what people were feeling.

They reached the end of the aisle for the fourth time. This time, Kenny actually glanced out, before freezing and ducking back in. “Let’s go back this way,” he said. He didn’t seem scared, but he definitely didn’t want to step out into the next hallway.

“Okay…” Was this how Kenny normally did his shopping? “Why?”

“Adachi-san’s out there. I’m not… I don’t want to talk to him right now.”

Okay, thinking about it, that was entirely fair. “All right. I’m not a beary big fan of his, either. He’s kinda creepy. I dunno why…” It was just a feeling that he got, and couldn’t explain, any more than he could explain how he made the TVs so they could all leave his world. 

Teddie wasn’t expecting to get a sigh of relief in response. “Oh, so it’s not just me… good to know.”

They didn’t continue on that topic. Maybe they should have. But Teddie didn’t want to talk about people who gave him the creeps, and Kenny didn’t try to continue it, so it all ended there.

Instead, Teddie thought about if it would be a good idea for him to get some kind of gift for Nana-chan. She was a nice girl, she deserved good things. Maybe a little doll like the ones Kanji made?

...Thinking about it, that actually seemed like a beary good idea.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Teddie's trying, but he just doesn't have any of the context he needs to actually help right now. Most of the team doesn't, and the ones that do are either getting to know Chie or trying to divert the police from figuring out which dog is regularly entering Junes.


	103. In Which It Is October

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken has a bad day. The only reason this is a surprise to anyone is because he doesn't talk to them about things.
> 
> He's sure that, despite that, he can make sure that Nanako's birthday is a good day.
> 
> He may have bitten off a bit more than he can chew, there.

In Inaba, on the fourth of October, the sun wasn’t shining. It was a bit too covered by clouds to do that in the morning, and by evening, they were bound to open up and send sheets of rain down on anyone who was unfortunate enough to still be outside.

Ken didn’t really mind. It just meant that the sky would match his mood. He didn’t really want to get out of bed today, school day or not.

He heard someone knocking at the door. “Big Bro?” Nanako asked. “Are you up yet?”

He didn’t really want to be. It had been easier, the year before, when everyone he cared about knew exactly what was going on, and was more than willing to help him with it. But those people were in Iwatodai, and he was in Inaba, and everything had been so much easier back then.

And, well, he was awake. That was close enough, wasn’t it? “...Kind of.”

He wondered if Koromaru laying on top of him would be a good enough excuse to miss school. Probably not. His uncle had most likely already left for work, anyway, so it wasn’t like he could actually provide an excuse.

Besides, it was just school. As long as nobody tried talking to him, he’d be just fine.

The door swung open. That door let in more light than the window did, which only went to prove the earlier point about the weather being terrible.

Nanako looked more worried than anything, even if she did pause to hit the light switch on the way in. “...Are you sick or something?”

If only. That would have been so much easier to explain.

“I-I’m not sick.” He’d hesitate to say that he was okay, but it wasn’t like it had ever been easy for him to say that. But he didn’t want to make her worry about him on her birthday.

She didn’t look entirely convinced. But she didn’t ask again. “...Are you going to come to breakfast?” Was the question she asked instead.

Ken didn’t feel all that happy, but he supposed that breakfast was important. He knew that, back in Iwatodai, Shinjiro wouldn’t have been happy if he tried to skip it, no matter what day it was. And if Shinjiro could be even halfway functional- which he admittedly wasn’t sure about, but he did know that Kotone and Akihiko would be doing their best to make sure that he was- then Ken was sure that he could handle it, too.

Or, at least, he hoped that he could.

He wasn’t too sure about that yet.

“I… what will we be eating?” Maybe it’d be something he didn’t like to begin with.

“I’m going to make pancakes!” ...And she sounded so pleased with herself that it’d just make him feel worse if he decided to say no. He needed to stop tempting fate like that.

“Okay. That sounds good.” Even if he didn’t eat them that often, he didn’t exactly have a problem with pancakes.

Besides, if he didn’t get up soon, Koromaru would be upset with him for not giving him breakfast.

* * *

  
  


When Ken got downstairs, Koromaru padding loyally at his heels, there was a small box sitting on the counter. “What’s that?” He found himself asking.

“It’s my present,” Nanako stated, quietly, as she struggled to acquire the pancake mix without bringing the entire rest of the pantry down upon her head. “Dad… he said he didn’t know how late he’ll be working yet.”

This answer didn’t exactly come as any sort of a surprise. Ken wasn’t sure his uncle had ever been entirely certain of when he’d come home, at least when the answer wasn’t ‘late.’ And it wasn’t like his birthday had gotten much fanfare, either, though then there had been the excuse of Rise, an actual celebrity, going missing and not getting home until the next day.

It was still kind of sad, though. Nanako should have been happy for the day, and instead she had an absentee parent and a cousin who was dealing with his own personal baggage.

But then, what else was new?

“...I’ve got something for you, too,” He said, shaking his head and filling up Koromaru’s food dish. His bowl of water also needed topping up, so Ken made sure to do that too. “I… think I can try and get it to you this evening, if that’s okay?”

He wasn’t actually sure about that. School could already drag on, even on days when he wasn’t predisposed to feeling miserable. But all he needed to do was a bit of delivery, and there wasn’t much reason that he wouldn’t be able to manage that.

She nodded. “That sounds nice.” For a moment, the only sounds in the kitchen were of Koromaru eating and her tearing open a cardboard box of pancake mix. “But… Big Bro, are you really all right? You seem upset… did something happen?”

Why did everyone keep asking him that? “N-nothing happened. Everything’s… pretty much how it should be.” Well, if one ignored the fact that people kept getting targeted to be murdered. But honestly, that was such an integral part of Ken’s Inaba experience it’d be sort of weird if it didn’t happen. He tried not to think too much about what that meant about him.

He was now even less sure that Nanako believed him. But she still didn’t press any further.

He guessed that he’d just never know.

* * *

  
  


At lunch, Teddie had a question to ask. “Renren, do you know if Kenny’s all right?”

Ren blinked, and swallowed the bite he was chewing. “Why do you ask?”

“He’s been acting real weird and distracted. And… I dunno… when I saw him on the way to school, it’s like he was… beary sad.”

Ren almost wished that he didn’t know the reason for this. Then he wouldn’t have had to be the one to explain it to anybody, let alone Teddie. “It’s… I don’t think this is a good day, for Ken-senpai.” And not just because the weather forecast promised nothing but gloom and hopefully not doom, though it wouldn’t have been that much of a surprise if it was included.

“Why not?” Teddie looked at him as if he held all of the answers.

While he might have had the answers for this exact situation, that didn’t exactly make things any better. “So… you know today’s Nanako-chan’s birthday, right?”

It wasn’t an easy thing to forget. Not when Ken had suggested that all of them go over to his place to keep her company. Ren wasn’t sure if he meant that more for Nanako’s sake or his own. It felt rude to ask.

“Mm-hm! Kanji helped me make a doll for her!” It was nice to see that he’d been having fun. “...Why would Kenny be upset cause of that?”

Because that wasn’t the only thing this day commemorated. Ren wasn’t sure that the Shadow really had the context to get that yet, though, and he wasn’t sure that he knew how to explain it. “Well… he’s worried that he won’t be able to give her a good birthday.” If only that was the entirety of it, and not just the beginning of a long list of things that weren’t even his to tell. Not that Ken ever seemed all that interested in sharing his past with people.

“But moping’s not gonna make that any better, right?”

Probably not. But still… “I mean, he’s probably got other reasons. You know his uncle… isn’t always there for him.” More than Ren’s own parents were, but he’d long made his peace with that particular issue. “But if he’s not saying anything… maybe don’t bring it up.”

It was hard to tell, after all, if Teddie had picked up on whether a given thing was rude or not yet.

“But… then what am I supposed to do?”

Ren shrugged. He’d never actually figured any of this out, either. “I guess we should just… be there, and try to make Nanako-chan happy.” Making Ken happy… would probably be a bit of a tall order. “I’d say to be nice, but… you might take that a bit overboard.”

“What do you mean? How can someone be too nice?” Teddie tilted his head to the side.

Ren couldn’t think of a good way to explain it. “It’s just… you can be a bit much sometimes. Ken-senpai… probably doesn’t have the energy to deal with you like that right now.” It could be hard enough to pull together that kind of energy normally, let alone on a day like this.

Teddie nodded, and turned back to his lunch. Maybe he’d forget all about this conversation by the time they were actually at the Dojima residence, but Ren wasn’t sure he was that lucky.

Really, though, holding a party at a time like this… even if it was for Nanako, just what was Ken thinking?

* * *

  
  


Ken wasn’t entirely sure what he’d been thinking.

That he wanted Nanako to have a good birthday, yes. That entire point was completely non-negotiable. Nanako was sweet, and cute, and tiny, and she deserved everything good. Including, no matter what day it was on, a birthday.

But giving her other people to spend time with wasn’t necessarily going to stop her from worrying about him, particularly when she’d already seen reasons to be concerned. He’d given her the present he’d gotten- a pink stuffed platypus wearing a green bow- as soon as everyone else got there, so that she’d have something else to distract her with, but even that didn’t seem like a perfect fix.

Then again, if there were a perfect fix for the situation, odds were that someone would have found it already. It wasn’t like there was a shortage of people to look for it, after all.

Instead of that perfect fix, which presumably didn’t even exist, Ken was in a room full of people who saw no reason for the day not to be desperately happy. And it was suffocating.

Carefully, with shaking fingers, he pulled his phone out of his pocket. Checking to make sure no one could see, he started texting under the table.

_ Amada Ken: So, how’s your day been? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Originally, my plan was to skip class and sit around feeling sorry for myself. _

_ Amada Ken: ...And how did Akihiko-san and Kotone-san react to that? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: They skipped their classes, too. Said they were worried about me. So we just stayed in and watched movies all day. _

That sounded about right. After what had happened two years ago, Kotone and Akihiko had basically made a pact to not let Shinjiro be miserable anymore. So far, evidence showed that it was working out better than any of them had expected.

But then, two years ago, none of them had seriously expected Shinjiro to wake up, so clearly they just weren’t being optimistic enough.

Still… that sounded nice. Better than the day Ken had been having, at least.

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: What about you? You holding up all right? _

_ Amada Ken: It’s my cousin’s birthday and I made the mistake of telling my friends we could have a party. I’m starting to regret it. _

Except that he couldn’t really regret anything that made Nanako happy, when the only thing that was really a problem with this was his own failure to adjust to being somewhere where not everyone knew about his particular issues.

If he’d wanted to be alone, he shouldn’t have invited them over.

If he’d wanted their company, he should have actually talked about things.

...This would have been so much easier if he actually knew what it was that he wanted.

But then, when had he ever been any good at that?

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: That bad? _

_ Amada Ken: I mean, it’s not really going wrong. It’s just that I… might not actually be able to do this. I thought I could, but I can’t. And I’m not sure how to tell them there’s a problem, since most of them don’t… really know about this. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Have you considered telling them? _

_ Amada Ken: I think it’s a bit too late for that. Amagi-san brought a cake. It’s flattened, and the edges are burnt, but it seems mostly edible. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: Koto wants to know if they’d notice you leaving for a bit. _

Ken took a moment to think about it. There were a lot of them there… It was just that getting through any of the doors would require him to actually use the doors. Which meant probably making noise, which meant being noticed, and there went the ability to just not talk about the stuff that was bothering him.

Also, if he wanted to escape outside, it would be raining. That was another thing that could be a problem.

_ Amada Ken: I’m not sure. Probably. _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: ...She says to leave anyway, at least until you feel a bit better. _

Ken wasn’t sure he’d be feeling a bit better at all that night, but he assumed that Kotone would know what she was talking about. After all, her entire high school career could be summarized as her trying to figure out the best ways to help people, even if, these days, her goal was to get paid for it. If anyone knew how to help in a situation like this, it’d be her.

He just had to… think of a reason why he’d want to be alone for a bit. Without worrying anyone who didn’t know what day it was. Meaning most of the group.

He’d never thought that, one day, he’d be worried about having too many people who cared about him.

Still… it wasn’t the worst feeling in the world. At least he wasn’t alone anymore. Not unless he wanted to be.

All he needed was a few minutes to try and pull himself back together. Then he could rejoin the others as if nothing had been wrong to begin with.

Maybe, if he did that, everything would be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: You can, in fact, hang out with Nanako on her birthday. Given how you can only hang out with her when Dojima isn't there... yeah.
> 
> Also, if you set it up right, she can share a birthday with Shu, but that'd mean not spending time with her that day, so we can probably assume that it isn't actually that.
> 
> Yukiko is making great strides in her offscreen cooking progress. Sadly, as it is offscreen, there is little chance for anyone to recognize it.


	104. In Which Another Party Doesn't Go Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ken can't deal with everything, but he's still making his best attempt. Somehow, he's still not the worst person at it.

Ken abruptly stood up in the middle of Nanako’s birthday party.

All at once, everything stopped. Ren watched as his friend slipped his phone back into his pocket, shaking as everyone’s gazes were directed straight to him.

“S-sorry,” He stammered out, looking more at the table than at the people who surrounded it, or who were standing in other parts of the room, even though all of them were looking at him. “I- it’s just- I need some space.”

He backed away, and Ren would have been lying if he said he wasn’t relieved that he was heading towards the upstairs, and not towards the front door.

“...Big Bro?” As if to replace that one small bit of worry, now Nanako sounded upset.

Ken flinched away. “I-I’m sorry,” He repeated, before turning and fleeing upstairs. If Ren didn’t know better, he’d say he’d had a Goho-M in his pocket, or something. Except, well… none of them had much reason to be keeping Goho-Ms in their pockets.

Also, they were almost out of Goho-Ms, having replaced them with vegetables that they could just munch on and Teddie’s magic. Just another reason not to use them casually, assuming that they would even work in this world.

“...D’you think he’s all right?” Kanji asked, breaking the silence that had suddenly fallen.

“Did you even look at him?” Chie shot back. “Of course he’s not all right.”

“I’m not sure why he was like that,” Yukiko said, looking thoughtful. “He didn’t seem to be happy at all today, but I didn’t think it was that bad.”

“Renren might know!” Ren winced as everyone’s gazes turned to him. He should have known that Teddie wouldn’t have been able to keep his mouth shut. “Kenny hasn’t been happy all week, and he says he knows why.”

Why, why did he have to be friends with an adorable little Shadow who had no filter? “You know why Big Bro’s upset?” And then there was Nanako, with her own concern, for her big brother as much as for her birthday party, assuming that even kept going.

It wouldn’t have been too surprising if the whole thing ended up cancelled. After all, that was what had happened the last time this subject was brought up and Ken abruptly left the group.

That wasn’t a nice thing to think about. But this wasn’t exactly a very good day.

Ren didn’t want to say anything. This wasn’t exactly his story to tell, even if he didn’t have to go into all of the details. But they were all worried about Ken, and… well, he had to admit, he sort of was, too. “Ken-senpai… he’s not having the best time right now.”

“I… sort of figured that much,” Rise said, glancing back at where their friend had disappeared upstairs. There was no noise to tell them what he could possibly be doing. “I just don’t know why. It’s- nothing’s happened to him, right?”

“...Not recently.” This didn’t move anyone’s eyes away from him. Ren took a deep breath, and hoped that Ken wouldn’t be too upset with him later. “It’s about… things that happened, a couple years ago. And a couple years before that, too… This just isn’t a good day for him.”

If only there was a prize to be handed out for making massive understatements. He was sure that if there was, it would have been given to him with that statement.

“...Oh.” Nanako shrank in on herself a little. “So… that’s why…”

Teddie hurried over to her. “...Nana-chan?”

“Big Bro… he’s never been very happy, when I talked about my birthday… something bad happened to him? What is it?” There was really no good way to answer this question, particularly not to a seven-year-old who idolized her big brother and seemed to have precious little happiness in her life to begin with.

But not saying things… that wouldn’t make it any easier, would it? Arsene didn’t seem to have an opinion, but Izanagi Picaro sparked at those words, as if desperate to follow that current.

If there was one thing Ren had learned from the TV World, it was that ignoring one’s Shadow- which was, after all, what a Persona was- was never a good idea.

As long as he avoided the details that weren’t Nanako friendly- so, basically all of them- maybe things would be all right.

Only one way to find out.

* * *

  
  


As soon as Ken got to his room, he collapsed onto his bed, only blinking up when Koromaru started sniffing at him.

“Hey, Koromaru…” He reached a hand up to pet his dog. “I… do you think you could go downstairs for a bit? I… kind of left everyone in the middle of a party…”

Normally, this would have been when Koromaru hopped off of the bed and went downstairs to play with the others as a distraction. Except, this time, that didn’t happen, with him instead laying his head on Ken’s lap.

“...I guess you’re not doing that, then?” There wasn’t an actual answer given, but he wasn’t exactly expecting one when Aigis wasn’t in the room. “All right.”

He considered, for a moment, just lying there for the rest of the night. It wouldn’t have been the worst way to get through the rest of the evening, all things considered, but it also wouldn’t have been facing his problems, and according to every time he fought Shadows this year, that was apparently an important thing to do every now and again.

Not that something being important to do made it easy.

Ken took his phone back out of his pocket. Maybe the others would have more advice for him.

_ Amada Ken: I made it to my room. Now what? _

_ Aragaki Shinjiro: I’m not actually sure. I don’t think any of us have healthy coping mechanisms. _

That was… probably not untrue, if he let himself think about it. But they’d gotten better over the years, he was sure they had. They couldn’t just be walking on the edge of a pit of trauma and misery forever.

In his hand, his phone began to buzz. Someone was actually calling him. Ken supposed that he didn’t exactly have a good reason not to answer.

_ “So, I hear you’re having a bad time right now?” _ Kotone started.

“H-hey, Kotone-san.” He supposed he should have expected this. It was basically inconceivable that she wouldn’t try and help one of them if they needed it, no matter how poorly equipped she was to do so. “I… hope I’m not interrupting anything.”

_ “I mean, we were having a movie night, but I think we all sort of started tuning it out after a while, so… it’ll be fine.” _ When Ken listened closely, he thought he could hear some sort of noise in the background. Presumably, it was whatever they were watching.  _ “What about you? Is there anything you want to talk about?” _

If it had been anyone who was downstairs, Ken’s answer would have been an automatic no. With Kotone… well, a lot of things were different with Kotone. It was as if she made a conscious effort to be an exception to as many things as possible.

“I didn’t want to make anyone upset,” He breathed out. “I- I thought I could handle it, but…” Apparently he couldn’t. And it wasn’t even that much of a surprise to him, but… he’d wanted to be able to handle it. “It’s… worse than it was last year.”

_ “I’m not surprised. Last year, you were able to come to us if you needed it.” _ And if that didn’t sum up exactly what was wrong with this situation, he didn’t know what did.  _ “And now… you don’t have anyone right now, do you?” _

“...I told Ren-san?” Ken feebly tried to justify himself. “And- and I’ve still got you guys, it’s just…” It was easier, when he could talk to them in person. When he could see them, and be sure they were real.

Kotone sighed loudly. This wasn’t helping him feel any better.  _ “You need someone that you can talk to face to face. I don’t think it’s going to get better unless you do.” _

And that came from someone who was actually really good at helping people.

“I’ll… maybe I’ll talk to Ren-san about it.” Except that Ren was a Wild Card, and was therefore probably busy with a lot of things most of the time. “Or I’ll think of something else. But… I’ll try.”

Even though he couldn’t see her face, Ken was sure that Kotone was smiling.  _ “That’s all I’m asking for.” _

* * *

  
  


Saying he’d do something, and actually doing it, were two different levels of difficulty. Ken had been looking down at his phone for… he didn’t actually know how long… trying to think of what he was supposed to do, when there was a knock on the door.

“Big Bro?” He probably should have expected this. “Can… can I come in, please?”

He didn’t want Nanako to see him like this. He didn’t want anyone to, really, but… it wasn’t like they’d ever be seeing him at his best, at this time of year. “The door’s unlocked.”

Said door swung open, and Nanako picked her way inside. “Everyone else’s gone home now,” She said. Ken blinked. Had he really been out of it for that long?

“I… didn’t think it was that long.”

She shrugged, sat down next to him, and reached over to pet Koromaru. “Ren said that… stuff happened a couple years ago that really hurt you.” And, of course, everyone had probably gone home out of awkwardness afterwards.

He couldn’t blame them. If the situation were reversed, he probably would have done the same thing. There just wasn’t any good way to deal with it.

“I- I didn’t mean to- to make him have to say that.” Because he couldn’t say that he didn’t mean to leave, and lying to Nanako was one of those things that he never wanted to do if he could avoid it. “I just wanted you to enjoy yourself, but…” He guessed that just wasn’t happening.

“...It’s okay.” It was hard to tell from looking at her if she meant it or not, and not just because of the limited light in the room. “...D’you want something to eat? Yukiko left the cake.”

The edibility of said cake wasn’t actually in question. So it probably couldn’t hurt to have some… and it might not even feel as bad, if there weren’t a lot of people around.

Koromaru gave Ken an expectant look. “You aren’t getting any cake,” He sighed, and received a whine in return. “It’s not good for you. But- but I might have a bit.”

This was enough to make Nanako brighten up. Somehow. Her standards for company were probably a bit too low, but it wasn’t like Ken could say he didn’t know why.

“Okay. Let’s have cake.”

* * *

  
  


When Ryotaro got home, the lights were still on downstairs and the kids were eating cake from an unknown source. Finishing it, even, most of the insides were gone and the edges looked to be vaguely charred, to the point of questionable edibility.

He’d wonder if they made it themselves, except the number of plates sitting out implied there had been visitors, at some point, and maybe it had been them who brought the cake.

It took a few moments for them to notice his return, but soon both Ken and Nanako were looking at him, expressions unreadable.

“You’re back late,” Ken said. His voice, too, was unreadable, but he notably didn’t make any offers of cake. “How was work?”

Work had been just about the same as always. Complete with Adachi saying inane things. Yes, it was weird that Amagi Yukiko had gone missing around the same time the first two murders happened, yes, people kept disappearing for a day or so throughout the year. But there was clearly no visible connection between the incidents.

If that changed, Ryotaro would be the first person willing to take action, particularly when his nephew counted her as one of his friends, but at the moment, there was no reason to suspect anything of her. “It… went well enough. Busy.”

Ken nodded. It was always strange when Ken looked at him. It was as though there was something lurking within him, a light behind his eyes just waiting to spill out and envelop the world, charring it with brightness until nothing remained. It would have been a strange gaze even if it were not on a thirteen-year-old.

But it was. And the effect it left was highly unsettling.

Nanako reached over and tugged on Ken’s sleeve. “Big Bro… You should be nicer.”

Ken stabbed a piece of cake with his fork. “I-I’m trying to be. This just isn’t a good day for that.”

Not a good day… Well, Ryotaro would have been lying if he said that he didn’t have any idea why that could be. He just didn’t know how to handle any of it.

Just his luck that, the one time he’d hoped the kids would be asleep by the time he was home, they’d been staying up late to demolish an entire cake. Which he didn’t know where it came from, though it probably didn’t matter. They most likely knew better than to accept a random cake from someone that they didn’t know.

“Night, technically,” He stated instead, wondering how long he could possibly avoid this subject. “And the two of you have school in the morning, and if you stay up too long, you’re going to be late.” Not that he was entirely on top of their school attendance- he normally left long before he could make sure they’d be on their way- but if they were in the habit of being late, he was pretty sure it would have come up at some point.

Ken glanced at the floor. “Right… sleep. That’s… a thing that should happen.”

Well. That was vaguely concerning. Ryotaro wondered if he should have asked, before deciding that it probably wasn’t that important. The very worst that could happen was that his nephew didn’t sleep well and ended up being really tired the next day.

He would have asked Nanako if she’d liked her present, but somehow, that felt like even less of the right thing than just not saying anything at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There might just be a curse on the Dojima household that says there can be no successful gatherings.
> 
> Still, the family dynamics are... stable. They're probably not going to explode again unless something major happens.
> 
> Of course, it's only a matter of time until something major happens.


	105. In Which Naoto Keeps Covering For Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eventually, things have to return to normal. Eventually. It's not a fast process.
> 
> In some cases, properly returning things to normal means not actually doing your job.

Ken had always been an easy person to worry about.

It had started… Ren wasn’t really sure when it started. It was before the incident after they captured Mitsuo, even if that was the biggest thing that had happened… maybe it was just after they’d saved Yukiko, and he gave an example of how dangerous it could be to not communicate with others that was… sort of terrifying to think about. Or maybe it was before that, when he reacted strangely to battling against the Avenger Knight.

Maybe it was something from the very first days of their friendship, where Ken had tripped and fallen through a television screen, and Ren hadn’t been able to think of anything to do but go after him. He didn’t know.

Whatever the reason, it was easy to recognize that Ken might not have been entirely okay.

Now, the whole thing was relative, and it was probably a bad idea to try and figure out specifics on a Wednesday morning when the rain was coming down in sheets, and there was fog scheduled for that night, but the day before had clearly not been the best one.

“Do you think Kenny’s okay?” Teddie asked, quivering a little inside his raincoat. This was probably due to worry for Ken, and not actual cold, because Ren wasn’t sure that Teddie could even feel the cold. Ice Shadows tended not to.

It was hard to admit it, but he couldn’t give a good answer to that. “I… probably, if you give him enough time.” He wasn’t sure when it would next rain after this, but there had to be plenty of time for things to get better, right? Maybe this time, things would actually work out.

“He’s been… really sad, though.” And maybe he could have just taken his word for it. Teddie had always been really good at figuring out what others were thinking, and Ren wasn’t sure how. Maybe it was a Shadow thing, maybe it was just one of his own talents.

“I think… everyone gets sad sometimes,” He tried to explain. “And Ken-senpai has a lot more to worry about than some of us.”

“...I don’t like it when people are sad. It makes my chest hurt.”

Ren wondered if that could be called human decency, when the person showing it wasn’t even properly human. He decided that it probably didn’t matter. “...Me, neither.”

* * *

  
  


“Hey, Amada.” Ken blinked, and looked up.

“Nakajima-san? Is something wrong?” It wasn’t like he could remember Shu ever approaching him to try and talk with him. Mostly he was just… vaguely unfriendly.

“Well, it’s… I just… Sorry. About not being all that nice this year.” He adjusted his glasses similarly to how Ren did. “I mean, stuff was happening, and I know it’s not okay, and…”

“...That’s all right.” Honestly, until the suspension had happened, he’d sort of forgotten that Shu was even there. He’d been so accustomed to his presence, that he didn’t notice anything until he was gone. He wasn’t sure what kind of sign that was, but it probably was one. “It’s… okay if you think I don’t belong here. I’ve never really… been sure that I belong here.”

Over time, he was growing more and more accustomed to Inaba. It was a nice enough place, and he liked the people who lived there. It just… didn’t feel right, and he wasn’t sure that he’d ever be able to explain it.

It wasn’t that it was too quiet- circumstances had led the town to not being quiet the whole time that Ken was there, and he honestly felt like he could do with a bit of peace. And it wasn’t how he’d found himself investigating a murder case, because while that wasn’t something that anyone would consider normal, even the Shadows hadn’t been anything he wasn’t used to already. He just didn’t fit.

“...You’re supposed to just let me apologize.” Shu crossed his arms. “Not just sit there like that. You’re making it hard for me to feel bad.”

“Maybe I don’t want you to feel bad.” When people felt bad on his behalf, it either defaulted to pity or the stuff of nightmares. He wasn’t sure which one was worse, really. “Maybe I just want to move past this.”

Being mad at people was a waste of energy, anyway.

Shu took a deep breath. “All right. So then what am I supposed to do?”

Ken wasn’t sure, if only because nobody had been so lost as to actually present that question to him before. Normally they just went to Kotone. “Well, I guess that… we could start over, or something. Try to be friends.” It had worked out well enough last time. “You don’t have to just keep being upset with yourself for something that’s already ended.”

From the look on his face, he clearly hadn’t expected that answer. “That’s all you want?”

“That’s all I want.” All he could really bring himself to ask for.

It would be nice, to have someone else that he could get along with.

* * *

  
  


The investigation into the animal fur appearing at Junes was brought to a slow, drawn-out end by the fact that no new fur was currently appearing, and that asking for tests to be run on what was found was… inconclusive.

Inconclusive, in this case, meant that the second Teddie’s fur went under the microscope, all of the data was fried. Naoto wasn’t sure how that was possible- Teddie was weak to lightning- but apparently that was a thing that could happen. It gave her a new respect for the fact that the Kirijo Group apparently had some form of a Shadow research department.

The fur samples had been destroyed. Naoto found herself feeling more relief than she perhaps should have, given that her job was to try and make sense of them.

“Do you think maybe whatever it was has left and won’t be returning?” She found herself asking the nearest employee who would actually take the time to listen to her. The fact that he happened to also be the manager’s son was only a bonus here.

“I dunno. There’s usually a while between when it shows up. And as time goes on, there’s just more of it. First there was the white fur back in spring, and then the orange stuff showed up a while after, and then this summer it started being blue, and I’m not sure I wanna know what’s next!”

In all honesty, Naoto found herself sort of agreeing with him, if only because she couldn’t imagine the team having any more animals or friendly Shadows on it. And actual wild animals, or enemy Shadows, being loose in Junes was probably a bad thing.

Still, it was more likely that, if anything else got in, it was one of the town’s large population of stray cats. They seemed to get anywhere, particularly if nobody was actually supposed to be there, even if there were other animals present that should have told them to think twice.

“Well, in that case, you can always contact us if it appears again.” Technically speaking, if she was trying her very hardest, her recommendation should have been to actually install security cameras in the electronics department, instead of relying on a combination of trust, the fact that few enough people went there to be able to remember who did, and the fact that it would be incredibly difficult for someone to sneak out of the store with an entire television. But doing that would mean that people could witness them going in and out of the TV, and see Koromaru, the fox, and Teddie, and neither of those were things that she particularly wanted to happen.

“Dad’s not gonna be happy to hear that…” Yosuke deflated, if that was even possible. Naoto had mostly known him to be a withdrawn type of person. It sort of made her wonder why Chie sounded so annoyed every time she ever mentioned him. “...Hey, why are you the one saying this, anyway? Shouldn’t the adults be doing that?”

...Well. She supposed that was one reason. Even if he didn’t seem to mean any offense by it. “You would think that, but Adachi-san has decided to start chasing cryptids, and we have both convinced Dojima-san to take a break, though I’m not sure he’s actually using it to rest.” When her fellow Persona Users wondered if they all really had it together enough to figure out who was shoving people into television sets, she was always tempted to point out that the actual police department could be just as dysfunctional.

But then, the police were just as badly off as they were, so maybe that wouldn’t be a good idea to mention. Besides, Ken said enough vaguely concerning things about SEES and how they’d done things that the others had probably caught on to how being a functional group wasn’t entirely necessary to get things done, even if he never mentioned the stories that most summed that up.

Yosuke looked at her. “What do you think he’s doing instead?”

“I don’t know, but we left him near the kitchen section. Maybe now he’ll actually make it home on time for dinner.”

“Do you really think that?” He sounded genuinely curious, maybe because he’d never met Dojima before.

“No.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Probably one of the first things Ren and Yukiko thought, when Ken started telling them stuff, was to wonder if he was okay. And the answer to that question is highly debatable!
> 
> I'm presuming that, in canon, it was Yosuke and Teddie's job to try and cover the fox's tracks if anyone started noticing fur on the floor. It would help if this group had someone to cover for them in Junes itself, but that's really not in the cards right now. He wasn't even considered as a candidate to replace Naoto's dungeon.


	106. In Which Gifts Are Given

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chie and Ken both receive things that, depending on the point of view, should have been given to them a long time ago.

Today, Teddie had a Mission. It was one that anyone else would say didn’t make sense to be that important, but those people weren’t him, and so just didn’t get it.

Today, Teddie was going to go see Chie-chan and give her her glasses. It felt like something he should have done a long time ago, even considering that she’d only gotten her powers beary recently, but maybe that was just bearcause of how long this pair had been waiting for an owner.

He still remembered it. How he’d first started making glasses, months and months ago, out of boredom and a desperation for something to change about his world, now choked with fog. Back then, it had been something to do, a distraction from the world around him.

And then he started thinking about them a bit more, about the finicky bits that needed to be put into place, about things like different shapes and colors and lenses, and it turned into an art form.

And then he’d been aimlessly wandering, like he normally did, and he came across Kenny and Renren, and the glasses, once more, turned into something new. They bearcame something useful. He bearcame someone useful.

Teddie didn’t think back to those days a lot. They were gone, now, literally a world away. He now lived in the human world, with friends and school and all sorts of crafts.

But sometimes he had to. Because there were things he did that nobody else could, like making glasses, and he wanted to put all those abilities to good use.

There wasn’t much purpose to a pair of glasses that hadn’t yet found an owner.

So he kept that yellow pair, one of his first creations, tucked safely away in a case in a pocket of his bag for school, and tried not to let his thoughts linger on them so much that he couldn’t pay attention to anything the teachers were saying.

He was halfway successful. No one seemed to notice anything was different all the way up to lunchtime.

“Hey, Teddie, is there anything you want to do after school?” Renren asked.

He didn’t even have to think about the answer. “I need to go find Chie-chan and give her her glasses.” If people at the surrounding desks glanced at them a bit strangely, he didn’t notice. “Just… feels like I shoulda done it by now.”

“You have a pair for her? Can I see them?” Renren had already seen that pair multiple times, but Teddie still fished them out. “They… look sort of familiar.”

“I’ve had them for a while,” He agreed. “They just didn’t seem to fit anyone else.”

“I know you don’t mean that literally, but it’s really easy to think about what that’d look like.”

Renren seemed amused, and Teddie had no clue why. He wasn’t really sure why people felt things a lot of the time, just that they did. He didn’t even know why he felt things a lot of the time. He wondered if the humans found it as confusing as he did.

Whatever the answer, it didn’t seem like something he’d ever be able to ask.

* * *

  
  


Now, there were two options for Teddie to get his glasses to Chie-chan. The first option was visiting her at her house, which would have been completely pawsible if he had any idea where she lived.

However, Teddie had no idea where Chie-chan lived. He was sure that Yuki-chan knew, but he didn’t think he needed to ask her about it. After all, the most likely place where he could find the others would be at their school, and he could just track down Chie-chan there. Bearfect!

He wasn’t sure if Kenny and Renren had plans for that day, but whatever it was, they could probably handle it without him, so Teddie hurried, full speed ahead, for Yasogami High.

Well. Maybe not full speed. He wasn't wearing his skates, and just being able to keep himself cool wasn’t the same thing as being able to freely access Sukukaja. But he was moving as quickly as was normal for a human, and that’d have to be good enough.

When he arrived at the school, the person he was looking for was already leaving. “Chie-chan!” He called, waving his arms over his head in the hope that she’d notice him. “Over here!”

Upon hearing his voice, Chie-chan stumbled a bit. “T-Teddie?” She didn’t have to sound so shocked to see him! “What are you doing here?”

Immediately, he was fumbling with his bag, trying to get at what was inside. “I- I have something for you.” This whole exchange had gone by much more smoothly in his head. Eventually, however, he managed to find what he was looking for. “Here!”

Chie-chan approached, giving the pair of glasses an appraising gaze. “These are… glasses?”

“They’re supposed to help see in the fog,” Yuki-chan explained, coming up from behind her. “Teddie makes them in all sorts of shapes and colors… but when you put them on, it’s like the fog doesn't even exist!”

Everyone kept saying that. Teddie wasn’t sure they were that useful, but then, he didn’t see the fog the same way that the humans did, so maybe he just didn’t know what he was talking about.

“Really?” Chie-chan slipped the glasses on. “...Doesn’t look any different to me.”

“That’s because there’s no fog here.” Teddie wasn’t sure why he had to explain this. It seemed plenty obvious to him. “But once you’re in my world, you’ll be all set!”

“Really? Where’d you even get these?”

“I made them.” He wasn’t sure when the last time someone had actually asked him about it was. Maybe nobody ever had. They all seemed to know where they came from either way. “Even when I don’t look like this, I’m beary dextrous!”

Yuki-chan took one of her pairs of glasses out of her pocket, and fiddled with it. It was the red frames, the ones that the others didn’t give her odd looks whenever she wore them. “You know, Teddie, I’ve always wondered. Why did you start making these?”

And he wasn’t sure he could give her a good answer. Because he wasn’t sure exactly when the idea had occurred to him in the first place. And so maybe the thought process behind it would furever be lost to the fog.

“I dunno… It just seemed like a good idea.” And nobody posed any further questions.

He wasn’t sure what he was supposed to think about that.

* * *

  
  


No matter how much time went by, Ken didn’t think he’d ever fail to be surprised by his uncle making it home on time. It made Nanako happy, on those rare occasions, but he wasn’t getting his hopes up that it would happen again.

But even when he didn’t let himself hope, sometimes it happened. Sometimes, his uncle was actually home in time for dinner, walking through the door and acting like it was something that happened every day, instead of every other week if they were lucky.

Today was one of those rare days. Ken and Nanako sat together in front of the television with Koromaru, like they did last night, while their caretaker was rummaging through the kitchen cupboards for something.

Ken wondered if he should have been concerned by this. He’d never seen his uncle attempt to cook before, so if he made something, it would be more difficult for him to tell whether or not it would be a good idea to eat it. But if he voiced that worry… The household was constantly on edge as it was. He didn’t want to be the one to make things worse.

Eventually, however, the rummaging in the kitchen stopped, and Ken registered his uncle approaching him with something. “Here.”

It was a light orange coffee mug. Ken picked it up and turned it over in his hands. “A coffee mug?” He didn’t think that was a usual thing to just give to someone without explanation.

Then again, he was pretty sure that Shinjiro’s entire wardrobe seemed to be made up of things that other people had given him, and he couldn’t remember receiving spontaneous gifts just about ever, so maybe he wasn’t actually qualified to make statements about that.

“This is… well… It’s a family thing,” His uncle explained, as though that was a suitable answer that didn’t raise just as many new questions. “This is yours, and you can put your name on it later, if- if you’d like.” Ken was pretty sure this was the first time his uncle had given him something of his own. And maybe, in other circumstances, this wouldn’t have been all that strange, but…

“A… family thing?” He supposed that SEES had something similar, with the Evokers, except that he’d given his back to Mitsuru because his carrying it around would raise questions that nobody was entirely comfortable with answering. And now he didn’t really need it anymore, unless something drastic happened in the human world, and he wasn’t even sure he missed it.

But then, most people wouldn’t miss having to regularly shoot themselves in the head. So maybe he was worrying about the wrong thing entirely.

“I’ve got one, too!” Nanako piped up. “I like the color on yours. It matches you!”

Kala-Nemi glowed at the recognition. Ken wondered just how perceptive one little girl could be. “I- I- ...All right.”

He still wasn’t sure what to think about this. This seemed like… something that should have happened earlier? Except it also seemed far too sudden.

But there was an object in his hands that nearly perfectly matched the color of his Persona, and he couldn’t just say that it didn’t mean anything. Even if the others wouldn’t have known why that shade was so fitting. This was, after all, apparently a family thing.

And even if the family itself was… not the most functional thing in existence… Ken couldn’t entirely say that he wanted to not be a part of it. Not when there could still be more moments like this, with all three of them together.

He wanted a place where he could fit. In Inaba, he needed to do just about all the work in order to make one. And it hadn’t even reached to there.

But now, his uncle might just have been trying. Nanako always had been. And maybe that meant something.

He just didn’t know what he was supposed to do next.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Almost ninety chapters since the yellow glasses were first introduced, and now they finally find their way home. It really is about time.
> 
> I now actually know about where everyone's going to be at during Persona Q, so... good chance of Persona Q in the near future. Featuring a pair of Kens who are very awkward around one another, at least one person who wandered in despite not having a Persona, another person not being there despite having powers, and lots of questions about what exactly happened during 2009. ...You know. Once they're all out of Wonderland.


	107. In Which A Festival Approaches

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Culture Festival season approaches, and that means Yasogami High has to start preparing.
> 
> The kids are honestly more excited about it than the actual high school students.

One thing that gave Yukiko an effective distraction from Shadow-related stuff and the fact that Chie had a Persona now was that Culture Festival season was upon them.

Culture Festival season meant that, at the end of the month, which was fast approaching, Yasogami High would have their Culture Festival. Which meant that everyone had to be prepared for whatever their class was going to do.

Which meant, of course, that their class had to decide what they were going to do.

There were options, of course, put to a vote, film rooms and study halls and haunted houses. All completely normal things that, if they didn’t do it, some other class would.

So, naturally, her eyes trailed down the list until she found something interesting.

_ Group Date Cafe. _

Yukiko had no idea what a group date cafe was, had never even been on a group date before, and she wasn’t sure anyone else in the room had been, either. It was the sort of thing that none of them knew about, and that would be incredibly difficult for them to put into practice.

Yukiko knew full well that, if this option was chosen, it wouldn’t go too well. But she chose to vote for it anyway, as a joke. After all, it wasn’t like the rest of the class would go along with it…

...Right?

* * *

As it turned out, far too many members of Kashiwagi’s class had the exact same sense of humor.

“Who suggested this, anyway?” Chie asked, glaring at the floor as if it could answer her question.

“I was just joking…” Yosuke groaned, burying his face in his desk.

“Wait- this was your idea!?” Yukiko couldn’t help but feel sorry for Yosuke in this situation. It sounded like he was about to face Chie’s wrath, and that wasn’t fun for anyone even when she hadn’t had super strength, or powers over ice. Her words were also drawing the attention of the rest of the class, who had very quickly started to regret their life choices.

“It- it was a joke! Honest! I- I didn’t mean… I didn’t think anyone would actually go for it!” It was things like this that made it clear their classmate had no common sense whatsoever. Or maybe that he had too much faith in the common sense of the rest of the class.

But then, Yukiko had also had too much faith in the rest of the class, so she wasn’t sure there was a huge problem there. It wasn’t like everyone else had been forced to go along with him.

“Yosuke-kun?” She started, trusting that Chie wouldn’t start on a lecture until she was done, “You… do realize that there are better times for jokes, right?”

Yosuke just gave another defeated groan and returned to his position of shame.

* * *

  
  


“...Culture Festival?”

Kanji nodded. “It’s a thing that high schools do. The one for my school’s coming up, but I’m not… really involved with it.”

“Why not?” Teddie wasn’t really sure what this ‘Culture Festival’ thing was, but it had the word festival in the name, and the festival during the summer had been fun, so this new thing had to be fun as well. It just made sense.

“Well, sure my class is doing a thing, but that doesn’t mean they want me around while they’re doing it. And most I’d be able to do is decorations, anyway… Me and Naoto just wander into Rise’s classroom and watch her boss everyone around.”

That didn’t sound beary fun at all. Not compared to actually putting something together with other people. “Do… do they not like you, or something?”

Kanji shook his head. “Look, sometimes people judge you just cause you’re not exactly what they expected. And then they tell everyone to do the same, and then you’ve got just about no friends except the group of crazies who jump through TV screens.” That sounded sad. And not just because Teddie could see himself easily ending up in the same pawsition.

Sure, he didn’t have any real close friends at school yet, but everyone was more than willing to talk with him sometimes, as long as he managed not to come on too strong. But everyone thought he was like them, thought he was human, and while there wasn’t any reason they should have been able to find out, while everyone who knew so far seemed to accept him… not everyone could be nice like that. Not everyone would reject him.

And now Kanji had presented him with another terrifying pawsibility. He’d never thought that, if someone found out what he was, they’d tell others to reject him, but maybe that was just bearcause everyone who knew so far had Personas. Getting as far past that as being able to try talking to other people just didn’t seem pawsible to him.

“That’s… what happened to you?” He wasn’t sure which answer would be more terrifying.

“I mean, I still talk to Naoki, but…” Teddie knew Naoki. It was hard not to, when he was Kanji’s only real friend who didn’t have powers. Even then, the two of them weren’t really the best at talking to each other. But they still seemed to like each other just fine. “I’m used to it. And, you know, kids don’t always listen to adults, so…”

He didn’t know. Not really. Sure, his classmates sometimes caused trouble for the teachers, but he still didn’t entirely get how the whole kids versus adults thing was supposed to work. If people caused problems for each other bearcause of their ages, wouldn’t that just give them more problems later? Maybe it was just a human thing. Maybe he’d understand eventually.

Maybe it’d be a better idea for him to just change the subject.

“So, are Culture Festivals fun?”

“Why not come see for yourself? It definitely lasts long enough for you to show up. Maybe you could even ask Yukiko-senpai for a tour or something.”

That sounded nice. “Can Kenny and Renren come, too?”

“If they have time? Sure. Why not?” And thus, Teddie gained another exciting new thing that he could get to experience. He couldn’t wait.

* * *

  
  


“You want us to go with you to Yasogami High’s Culture Festival?” Ken repeated.

He wasn’t sure why, but hearing the invitation from Teddie… Something about it struck a chord within him, caused Kala-Nemi to spark to full attention in a way that almost never occurred.

Teddie nodded. “Kanji says Yuki-chan could even show us around the place! It’ll be fun!”

It was hard to deny the possibility of fun. Ken had gone to Gekkoukan’s Culture Festival the year before at Kotone’s invitation, and had actually had a pretty good time, even if it sort of felt like something was missing throughout the whole thing.

That bit, thinking about it, had probably been due to how most of his experience with Gekkoukan High happened when it was Tartarus. After dealing with that sort of thing for long enough, happy, cheerful experiences in those halls became something of a foreign concept.

“Are you asking Ren-san to come along, too?” With how much Teddie loved being around people, especially people who liked him, it just didn’t make sense for him to ask one of them and not the other.

He received an excited nod in return. “Renren said he’d come if you did, too!” Before meeting Teddie, Ken would never have thought to describe the air as chilling in excitement, but his time in Inaba had come with a lot of new experiences that he hadn’t expected, even beyond his incredibly incorrect figuring that Persona stuff wouldn’t end up following him into his new life.

“I… Guess it’d be all right…” If only he could figure out why his Persona was so interested in the concept. The one the year before hadn’t gotten anywhere near the same reaction. “...Oh, and do you think Nanako could come along? She’d love the games.” And it wasn’t like his uncle would do anything to stop them. Odds were he wouldn’t even get off work until long after they’d left school property.

If anything, this just made Teddie more excited. Ken shivered a bit. “You really think Nana-chan would want to come, too?”

Right. Teddie liked Nanako. Not that any of his friends didn’t like her, but the two of them seemed to be on the same wavelength. “Why wouldn’t she? It’s the most interesting thing that’s happened in town since the summer festival.” Inaba just didn’t really do big events, versus how there seemed to always be something happening in Iwatodai, even if all he ever heard about it was the local Wild Cards spending a bit too much time at the movies.

Teddie’s grin seemed to split his whole face. “Great! I’ll go tell Renren!” And then he moved away so quickly that, if Ken didn’t know better, he’d say he was skating.

He watched his friend go, and wondered how he was going to invite Nanako along- he’d probably just end up telling her about it, actually, it wasn’t like this was Persona related business, no matter what Kala-Nemi seemed to think.

Yeah. Being honest with her had worked well enough so far. Why would that change now?

At the very least, he figured it was more likely it’d turn out well than that he’d ever figure out what it was about the Yasogami High Culture Festival that had Kala-Nemi so interested.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I find it very easy to believe that Yukiko would go along with Yosuke's suggestion and then refuse to tell anyone what she voted for out of shame.
> 
> Ken doesn't realize it, but he's been waiting for this festival to happen for two years now.


	108. In Which A Whole Game Happens Offscreen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Culture Festival is a thing. It happens. There is exactly nothing interesting about it whatsoever, at least that is directly relevant to this story.
> 
> At least, not that anyone in this group knows.

On the day of the Yasogami High Culture Festival, Ken woke up a bit later than usual with an odd feeling of anticipation. He wasn’t sure what it was that he was so excited for, but something about that day… he couldn’t even say what it was he was feeling, really. Just that the day itself was somehow important.

Over his years of having a Persona, Ken had gotten quite a number of odd feelings, and most of them were in some way significant. But this… he was sure it had to be just his imagination.

Shaking off the feeling, he went downstairs to see that Nanako was already making breakfast. “Good morning, Big Bro!” She chirped. “Koro-chan!”

“Arf!”

“...Good morning.” Ken fought back the urge to yawn as he filled Koromaru’s food bowl. That would mean letting on to tiredness, which would invite concern. “What are you making?”

“Well, I was trying to make fried eggs, but then they mostly turned out scrambled…” Nanako frowned at the frying pan. “And- oh. Part of it turned black…”

From there, she was quick to scoop the eggs onto a pair of plates. “I- I’m sure it’ll be good anyway,” Ken stammered out. “It’s not… all burnt, right?”

“R- right. Most of it’s fine, but...” She stared at the charred parts apprehensively.

“Then we scrape away the bad parts, and then we can have breakfast.” Really, it wasn’t any different than when they’d been eating around the burned parts of the cake Yukiko gave them. “Like with your birthday cake. Remember that?”

Nanako nodded, and started rummaging around again. “So… what do we take it off with?”

“...I think a fork would be fine.” And more importantly, the silverware drawer was… not exactly tidy, but easier to navigate than certain other parts of the kitchen. Ken still wasn’t sure how an alarm clock had gotten into the refrigerator, and at this point, he was scared to ask.

“...Right.” A few moments later, and she passed him a plate covered in eggs, along with a fork. “Don’t eat any of the burned bits! They’re not good for you!”

“I know.” It wasn’t like he was more than a little curious, and any curiosity came purely from how he hadn’t eaten anything that was burned since he was ten or so. Everyone in SEES had wanted to make sure he got… not necessarily the best parts of a meal, but they were going to ensure that everything he got was good to eat. In this case, though, the novelty was something he could definitely pass on.

The two of them sat down to eat, and for a moment, the only sounds were the clinking of silverware against plates and Koromaru softly snuffling down his own breakfast.

And then there was something else. A bell, loud but distant, of a kind that Ken was sure he had only ever heard before when sat in front of a television.

Nanako paused, and her fork fell down to her plate. “...Big Bro? Did you hear that?”

“The bell?” He checked, and got a nod in return. “It’s odd. I didn’t think there were any bells like that in Inaba.” And he couldn’t be hearing things, because Nanako was here with him, and she heard it, too.

“There aren’t.” Koromaru whined. “...Koro-chan? Is something wrong?”

Even stranger. If there really weren’t bells like that in Inaba… where had the sound come from? Ken tried pushing it out of his mind, but Kala-Nemi kept sparkling with anticipation.

But anticipation for what?

* * *

  
  


“Ken-senpai? Is something wrong?” Ken had been fidgeting constantly since Ren met up with him, occasionally glancing around as if he was looking for something. It was sort of concerning.

“I… no. I don’t think so.” This wasn’t reassuring in the slightest. “It’s just- did you hear anything strange this morning?”

It didn’t take much thinking to realize what Ken must have been talking about. “Do you mean the bell?” It had been an unnerving sound to hear while getting dressed. He might or might not have been disturbed enough by it to bring daggers along with him, though he was half-sure he wouldn’t be needing to use them. “I’m pretty sure there aren’t any like that in Inaba.”

“I didn’t think there were bells like that outside of TV,” Nanako stated.

Teddie paused. “...You heard the bell, Nana-chan?” He sounded surprised.

She nodded. “It was loud. But really far away? It’s weird. ...Is something wrong?”

Teddie shook his head quickly. “N-no, I just… thought it was a thing about…” He didn’t finish the sentence. Ren supposed there were only so many ways they could try and describe themselves without explicitly saying that they had Personas.

“It’s probably nothing,” He cut in, figuring that it really wasn’t worth the explanation that they’d have to give. “I mean, sometimes a bell’s just a bell, right?”

“I wouldn’t be sure,” And there was Naoto making her appearance to properly welcome them. Teddie said that Kanji would have done it, but that he was busy with something. He didn’t seem to know what that was, so Ren assumed it was either unimportant or embarrassing.

If it was the latter, he’d have to ask Rise if she had any pictures.

He looked up at Naoto. “What do you mean?”

“There are no bells like the one from this morning in Inaba, let alone with a range to reach all across the town. And after doing some asking around, we can conclude that the only people who heard the bell… were all of us. And Nanako-chan, of course.”

Of course. And that was probably the most concerning part of all this. Nanako was cute, and tiny, and absolutely not a match for any Shadows they might have ended up meeting.

But that wasn’t something he wanted to worry about at the moment. “So where are we going?”

“I’ll show you to my classroom first, and then to Kanji-kun and Rise-chan. Then we can go to Yukiko-senpai and Chie-senpai’s classrooms. Shall we? They’re all waiting for us inside.”

Ren nodded, and went along with it, and before he knew it, all thoughts of the mysterious bell from that morning had faded completely from his mind.

* * *

  
  


Partway through the festival, Ren wandered away from the rest of the group. He wasn’t sure when he’d done so, except that, when he did, he’d also started feeling really sad.

“Yen for your thoughts?” Marie sat down near him.

“...What are you doing here?” He hadn’t been aware she even knew where the high school was, let alone that there was an event going on that day.

She blinked at him, green eyes swirling with confusion. “I met up with you all in the second year hallway, remember?”

Now that he thought about it… he did vaguely remember her presence earlier, though he didn’t recall her doing anything to announce her own presence… or to introduce herself to Chie. Assuming that she hadn’t already met Chie on the street during summer, he didn’t control what she did, but it felt like the sort of thing he should have known about.

“I- right. Sorry.” He must have really been out of it, if he could ignore the presence of somebody from the Velvet Room.

“So, what’s up? Is something wrong?”

“I- I don’t know.” It just felt strange, and he wasn’t sure that anyone would understand it. “Um… where is everybody?”

“We all split up after a while. I told them that we were gonna go check out what the Drama Club’s doing… So we should probably actually go see what the Drama Club’s doing.”

“The… drama club?” That was theater and stuff, right?

“Yeah. Come on, I bet you’ll like it.” Marie had an odd look on her face, as if she knew something that Ren didn’t, despite being someone who spent most of her time fighting with Lavenza over stationery. “It sounds like just your thing.”

...He wasn’t sure why, but he got the feeling that he should have been offended. “What’s that supposed to mean?” If he were less confused, Izanagi Picaro would have been crackling just under the surface, while Arsene plotted something less overt. They still were, a little, but nowhere near as intensely as they usually would.

“Well…” She trailed off, as though she were thinking of the exact right words to put into a specific spot. “You’re the kind of person who, given the chance, would have a staredown with a giant Shadow that goes berserk at eye contact because you could.”

“That’s… really specific.” He couldn’t even deny that it sounded like something he would do, if he thought he had a chance of winning against said Shadow. “...Have anything about the others?”

“Ken would let his past self pick a fight with him. Rise would put enough spice in a cookie to kill Shadows with. Chie would kick her way out of a haunted house because she couldn’t handle a jump scare. That enough for you?” All really specific, and probably not inaccurate.

“I guess…” It made him wonder how observant she really was, when she could figure out that much about him. “But… what does that have to do with the Drama Club?”

“Just trust me, you’ll love it.” And thus, she began escorting him down the hallway with no more explanation.

That she ended up being right was just another sticking point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those who are sticklers for chronology, the ideal time to read however much there is of the PQ fic would be two-thirds of the way through this chapter. Maybe don't focus too much on chronology.
> 
> Introducing Ren to drama was probably a bad idea, but it's not like Marie will be dealing with him directly when that starts having major consequences.


	109. In Which Everyone's Still A Bit Disoriented From Forgetting Persona Q But it's Not That Relevant

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Culture Festival, everyone goes home, and things slowly settle down once again.
> 
> Ken and Nanako's garden is still doing as well as ever, by the way.

“You’re all going to some hot springs?” Ken didn’t exactly sound jealous, more curious.

“Well, it’s mostly because my family runs the inn,” Yukiko explained, hoping that he would find this a perfectly satisfactory explanation. Really, she’d had the idea mostly because she felt unbelievably tired, for some reason, but she didn’t want to admit to that. “I’d ask if you and Ren-kun would like to come along, but…” It would have been necessary for them to get permission for that, and between Ren never mentioning his parents, and Ken’s relationship with his uncle being… strained, to say the least… she didn’t really see that happening.

“That’s fine. You should all enjoy yourselves. And then maybe we could meet up to make plans in a few days, or something?”

Right. According to the weather report, it would rain soon. Rain meant the Midnight Channel, and that meant giving them all some sort of goal, even if it was just ‘make sure nobody dies.’ It would probably be some time before Rise had the power to get them beyond making sure nobody died, but that didn’t mean they had to lose their position of keeping death from happening.

“That should work,” She agreed. It wasn’t like she had any plans for the next few days, she’d long learned to clear her schedule in the time surrounding rain. She didn’t want to be tired enough to miss the Midnight Channel, especially when they couldn’t always recognize the target right away.

Really, they’d been lucky in that, so far, it was all people they’d been relatively easy to meet with.

“Big Bro, do you think we could go to hot springs sometime?” Nanako asked, fixing Ken with her wide brown gaze.

“Well, it probably won’t be soon, but… maybe?” He sounded really unsure. “We’d have to ask Uncle about it, I think. And he might want to be the one to take us…”

Left unsaid was the fact that Ken’s uncle was perpetually busy. Even if he wanted to take his charges to a hot spring, chances were that he just wouldn’t have the time.

Hopefully, that was the only thing for her to feel sad about, and the feelings she’d been getting more recently were nothing more than a figment of her imagination.

* * *

  
  


_ Amada Ken: Do you remember that typhoon, two years ago? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: It would be hard to forget. It was the only sort of rain we had that year. Why do you ask? _

_ Amada Ken: No real reason. It’s just that… I can’t help but think about it right now. It made you cancel the Culture Festival that year, didn’t it? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: Yes. It would have been too unsafe for anyone to leave their homes. _

_ Amada Ken: And Minato-san and Kotone-san both got really sick, right? But Minato-san was out of bed sooner, wasn’t he? _

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: That… may have been how it happened. But it was so long ago now, it’s hard to remember. I know that he was better in time for our next trip to Tartarus. _

_ Amada Ken: ...I see. Sorry for bothering you. _

He wasn’t sure why he’d felt the urge to ask about that long-gone storm now, of all times. Maybe it was because of the Culture Festival he’d just visited? And how the storm had cancelled the one at Gekkoukan, two years ago? He didn’t know.

_ Kirijo Mitsuru: It isn’t a problem. To tell you the truth, I’ve recently been thinking about the typhoon, myself. I don’t remember what happened during it all that well, but it didn’t seem like an ordinary storm. And not just because it was the first rain we’d seen since April. _

_ Amada Ken: I don’t remember it very well, either. I guess that was why I asked. _

He couldn’t even be sure of what Shinjiro was doing on that day. He was sure he’d say that he hadn’t left Kotone’s side, and that was probably true, but it… also didn’t feel quite right.

Maybe that was just another mystery that they’d never fully be able to solve. They seemed to be putting together a lot of those.

All Ken could do was hope that the case he was investigating didn’t get added to that pile.

* * *

  
  


Ren saw Marie back to the Velvet Room, still not sure how she’d gotten to Yasogami in the first place. “You could have gone with the others to the hot springs,” He pointed out.

She shook her head. “They’re all really loud. I’ve had enough for today.”

It was hard not to believe her. She looked thoroughly exhausted.

Not that she was the only one. A strange tiredness weighed on Ren’s bones, made him want to sink deeper into Arsene’s darkness and never come out.

“All right, then. I’ll see you some other time.” He watched her vanish through the door to the Velvet Room, wondering when the next time was that she’d come out. She wasn’t the most consistently present friend, but she was a good one to have around, regardless.

And not just because it was entertaining to watch her and Lavenza argue. That was just a fun bonus. Same with the Skill Cards. And her flustered reaction whenever someone got into her poetry. It was nice to have a quieter friend who didn’t always talk like she was smarter than everyone else in the room. Even if Naoto actually was smarter than the rest of the room.

Now that Marie was gone, Ren headed straight home. The streets were usually this quiet, but it felt… almost strange, to be in a place where there wasn’t constant activity.

That, in and of itself, was odd. This peace was eerie, and yet it was the kind of quiet Ren normally liked. But no matter how much he reminded himself of that, all he could think of was how alone he was.

Was this how Teddie had felt, the first time a couple of dumb kids had stumbled their way into his world, with no idea of what they’d end up facing there?

Even if that was the case, what could have possibly triggered it now? Nothing all that big had happened that day. It was just a festival.

He thought Izanagi Picaro might have sparked, just a bit, but the feeling faded as quickly as it came.

He was probably just imagining it.

* * *

  
  


“Thanks, Namatame-san.” Ken smiled and accepted the box from the delivery man. A lot of the things sold on Tanaka’s show weren’t things he could get without attracting a lot of attention, but melon and eggplant? With that, the only thing that could possibly get attention was the price. And even that he’d probably be forgiven for if he agreed to split the melon.

He supposed it was a good thing the Shadows weren’t all that active, though. If that was the case, he’d have to compete for purchases with Minato.

Nanako perked up as he brought the box inside. “What’d you get, Big Bro?”

“Food.” Not that he was really sure how to cook eggplant, he didn’t run into Mudo spells nearly often enough to have needed much practice, but he was sure he could figure something out. Worst case, he’d call Shinjiro, put him on speaker, and ask him to walk him through the process. “And there’s probably still some seeds in it that we can plant in the garden.”

Despite it being well into autumn at this point, the garden was still not just active, but thriving. At this point, Ken was certain that it wasn’t supposed to be like this, but he also wasn’t complaining. If this supernaturally productive garden insisted on giving him more and more food, who was he to deny it?

“Should we be planting?” Nanako asked. “I don’t think anyone else is growing things right now.”

Really, with how cold it was getting to work out there, it was hard to blame them. “I think we should keep going as long as we can,” He replied, deciding not to mention that, if he was right about what was happening, that’d mean working even if there was snow on the ground. “These vegetables aren’t just tasty- they’re useful for magic stuff.”

“Really?” And now he’d touched on the thing that had been her favorite topic since she found out about it- the powers that he had, and were willing to tell her about. Even if she didn’t seem quite as excited as she’d been the last time they’d had a conversation about it. “What do you mean?”

“Well, people like me heal by eating things, but these can do a bit more than that. This melon’s really energizing, for example, and some of the paprika we’re growing can… well, make me basically fireproof. The corn’s pretty good, too. If there’s something dangerous coming my way, and I eat some of it, it just bounces off.” He’d joke about copying Shinjiro, but Nanako didn’t quite have the context for that. “I need to be really good with the timing, though.”

“...Is that why you keep kernels in your pockets?” He hadn’t realized she knew he was doing that.

“...Sort of.” He expected her to ask why he could possibly need to have that corn with him at all times, because that was what happened when she followed a given line of questioning, but she just nodded and fell silent. But then, she hadn’t been as engaged in the conversation as she usually was. Maybe the novelty of knowing someone who could use magic had just worn off. “...You know, you never told me how that thing at your school went.”

Nanako’s school had recently been visited by… some politician or other. Ken didn’t know the name. From what he could tell, it was apparently a pretty big deal.

“It was… all right, I guess.” She shook her head. “...Hey, Big Bro? Do you ever feel like you’re forgetting something?”

Koromaru sat down in front of her and tilted his head to the side. “Arf?”

“I wasn’t asking you, Koro-chan.” But she still smiled, reached over, and ruffled behind his ears. “I just… It feels like I’m forgetting something. Something important.”

And there wasn’t anything Ken could say about that. Not without thinking back to last February, and how it had felt like there was always something at the edge of his mind, which he couldn’t quite reach. And talking about that would probably mean telling Nanako more than she would ever need to know.

“Well… if it’s important, you’ll probably remember later, right?” He suggested, ignoring the fact that none of his friends had ever remembered the very important detail of who was going around shoving people into televisions.

“...I guess.” She didn’t sound entirely convinced, and she didn’t even know what he was thinking about. But that was the best he could do for her.

It’d just have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ken is absolutely the type of person who would be on good terms with his regular delivery guy. You cannot convince me otherwise.
> 
> Yes, I actually bothered to look up what Tanaka was selling at the end of October. Fortunately, the cheaper one was also the better trigger for conversation.


	110. In Which It All Goes To Hell

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yukiko has a problem. Ken's uncle gets called away from dinner.
> 
> It all goes downhill from there.

There had been threatening messages delivered to the Amagi Inn. Yukiko wasn’t really sure what to do about them.

On one hand, this was something that the police could probably assist with- for all she knew, it might even force the police force to get a clue, which they’d presumably been bereft of since they started ignoring Naoto.

On the other hand… how was she supposed to explain it? The notes she’d been getting… they were really specific. To the point where she was starting to worry about her parents, and not just because, if they experienced the world inside of the TV, they’d probably learn enough about it to find something worth grounding her over.

“Yukiko? Is something wrong?” And there was her mother, wandering in and accidentally taking away the decision from her. She couldn’t decide whether she was more irritated or relieved. “You’ve just been standing there and looking at this… piece of… paper…”

Looking back on this night, that was the moment where everything started going to hell.

* * *

  
  


Tonight, Ryotaro decided, was a good night. This was because he’d made it home early, for once, in time to help the kids figure out how to make eggplant parmigiana.

...Well. He’d have liked to say that he was helping. Mostly, he was sitting on the sidelines and cheering them on while Aragaki provided the instructions on speakerphone- with occasional interjections from his peanut gallery of two- and the dog kept wandering around and constantly getting underfoot.

But it was still a thing that involved all three of them, and at this point, he’d take what he could get. It wasn’t like things were very likely to get much better.

The food was almost done, nothing had caught fire, it all smelled really good… and then his phone rang. He was starting to think that maybe the only way he could get any peace while he was home was if he just turned the thing off.

“Excuse me for a moment, I need to take this,” He said, and didn’t bother looking for Ken and Nanako’s reactions as he went outside. Bad enough that Koromaru was staring after him with those round, sad eyes of his. “Yes?”

_ “Dojima-san.” _ Adachi sounded almost out of breath, which implied an unusually high amount of effort from him.  _ “There’s a situation involving the Amagi Inn. We think it might be related to the murder case from earlier this year.” _

It felt like just about everything was, these days. While everyone tried ignoring Shirogane’s pointed comments that the evidence surrounding Kubo was only really valid for one of the deaths, there was still so much about the whole thing that they didn’t know.

“...How urgent is it?” He remembered Adachi spouting wild conspiracy theories about Amagi earlier in the year, but more importantly, she was one of his nephew’s friends. He still wasn’t sure how they’d met, let alone become friends, but he talked about her often enough.

_ “It’s escalated to the point of death threats, sir.” _ Okay, yes, that was urgent.

He looked back into the house. Nanako was fully engrossed in the meal before her, but Ken was looking right at him. “You’re leaving, aren’t you?” He wasn’t sure that the kid meant to sound so accusing, but… well, okay, he probably did. And it was working.

“Something came up,” He confirmed. “I’ll be back as soon as I can, but you should probably put my helping in the fridge for now. And maybe go to bed right after dinner.”

“I’ll do my best,” Ken agreed. “Um… good luck with whatever you’re doing.”

“Good luck!” Nanako repeated, and it was those words that followed Ryotaro out the door.

He hoped that he wasn’t going to regret choosing to take this call.

* * *

  
  


Ken was terrified of his uncle learning what kind of things he did with his friends.

He never said so outright, but Yukiko had basic powers of observation, and even if she couldn’t recall the subject having ever come up before, she knew that, when it had, he’d been desperate for Dojima Ryotaro to never know a thing about Shadows or Personas.

She wasn’t really sure what he was scared of, honestly, but then, if her parents found out she’d been going into a TV and setting things on fire, she’d be grounded until well after graduation. And, admittedly, that had influenced her deciding not to tell them exactly why she’d been receiving threatening messages, but her general nervousness was somehow different from how scared Ken had been.

It was the sort of thing she’d wonder more deeply about, if her situation had been anything other than what it was.

“If you don’t stop, someone close to you will be put in and killed.” Hearing Ken’s uncle read the note didn’t make it any better than when she’d just been staring at it herself. “...Put in?”

“Into the TV,” She replied without thinking. The stare she got in return was colder than any that Chie could give.

“Amagi. This is a serious situation.” She knew that. And she’d given him a serious answer.

It was just that it wasn’t something most people would ever believe.

There was a television nearby, when she thought about it. She could probably use it to prove her point, give a proper explanation. It’d make her feel better than just standing there saying nothing of substance until the Midnight Channel came on and maybe made things even worse.

But every time she considered that, she thought of Ken, and how much he didn’t want his uncle to know. Even if she didn’t know his reasoning… this wasn’t exactly hers to tell him about.

“...Sorry,” She said, and she didn’t know if she was apologizing for the imagined slight, or for the lie she was about to tell. “It was just… the first thing that came to my mind.” That it had done so because it was the truth was probably more relevant than she gave it credit for.

“...If anything, that somehow raises more questions.” She supposed it wasn’t a thing that most people would think of. If she tried writing a book about it, she’d probably get laughed out of the room before she could finish the first chapter.

“Everyone always says that. I don’t know why.” Even people who were on the team said that sometimes, and they knew exactly what she meant when she started talking about it.

“I hope you realize that I can be here all night if I have to be.”

At those words, Yukiko wanted to point out that Ken and Nanako might have still been waiting for him at home, wondering where he was and what he was doing. But in this situation, those words might not have been particularly welcome. Particularly when, the last time she saw his partner, he’d been chattering on about various theories involving her, none of them welcome. She was starting to see why Ken didn’t really like the man.

So she bit her lip, and didn’t say anything, and hoped that it would all be over soon.

* * *

  
  


Ken never thought that he would ever regret agreeing with Yukiko on the Midnight Channel’s relative suitability- or utter lack thereof- for a younger audience, particularly when there were older people available to watch it.

He was sure that, if someone appeared clear enough for them to figure out who it was, they could discuss it the next morning, where there wouldn’t be half of them delirious from lack of sleep. If it was already midnight, there probably wasn’t much that anyone could do at the moment. After all, most people would be in bed by then.

So he’d gone straight to bed after dinner, as sure as he could ever be that everything would be fine, and woke up just a few hours later to frantic barking.

There weren’t that many things that could mean. One of the few signs of Koromaru’s intelligence that everyone noticed was how he was incredibly well-behaved. If he was making a racket, there was a reason for it, and the only thing Ken could do was go downstairs and hope that things didn’t escalate to the point where Cerberus set the house on fire.

So Ken got out of bed and went downstairs, and was faced with the image of his cousin having been grabbed by the delivery man. “What is going on here?” Maybe he leaned a bit into the searing light that Kala-Nemi produced, tried to impose it on the world without full access to his powers, but in this case, he’d say it was entirely justified. “Namatame-san, what are you doing?”

Namatame didn’t respond. Nanako, though, reached for him as best as she could, eyes wide with terror. “Big Bro! Help!” As if there was anything to do. He couldn’t quite reach Kala-Nemi- almost, but not quite, and maybe that was just the shock but being frozen with fear could be enough, sometimes, to ruin everything- and he’d left his spear in his room because he hadn’t thought he’d actually need it.

“Let her go.” Even if it was a weak one, if he could reach for Psi and break his grip, that might have been all that he needed. If. Idly reaching for something and drawing it a very short distance to his hand just wasn’t the same as trying to consciously summon enough power to overcome another human being.

Why hadn’t he kept trying to ask for an Evoker?

The next few minutes were a bit of a blur. Namatame took off with Nanako. Ken gave chase, because while actual attacks weren’t currently something he could safely do, Koromaru was entirely capable of casting Sukukaja without breaking anything, and of course the dog was, out of the two of them, the one who was more generally capable of using his powers.

He fell a bit behind, of course, because even boosted, he still wasn’t quite a match for a vehicle, but not by as far as most would expect.

Admittedly, that was mostly because said vehicle hadn’t gotten all that far to begin with.

Things didn’t become much clearer there. There were people around, he recognized Yukiko, and he thought some of his other friends might have been there, too, but he couldn’t focus on anyone’s face very well. There was a wreckage, a pretty bad one, and there was a person inside, and-

“No,” He gasped out, seeing his uncle looking like he’d gotten on the bad side of that wheel Shadow in the dojo. “No, no, nonono…”

The life he’d put together for himself in Inaba, albeit one that was imperfect, with large parts built on mistruths and lies of omission, seemed to be unravelling around him. He’d always known, in the back of his mind, that eventually something had to give, but-

But there was something about this he could fix, wasn’t there?

He knew there was.

Because it was something he’d been doing for years. And even if it didn’t work, even if it just fizzled out like piles upon piles of Revival Beads, even if it did nothing…

He still had to try. He could fix things. He would.

He had to.

In that one moment of certainty, he reached out, and grabbed for his power, which had been lurking just beneath the surface all this time, and before the understanding of how to do so slipped away from him again, he pulled as hard as he could, until his world was bathed in a very familiar bright blue light.

“Kala-Nemi. Diarahan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...So. Yeah. That just happened.


	111. In Which It Doesn't Get Much Better

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it turns out, using healing magic on someone not aware of Personas has consequences. Such as that they should probably be told about Personas.
> 
> In no way is Ken prepared for this.

By all logic, everything should have hurt.

And it did hurt, at first. The initial collision came with all the pain that could have been expected, possibly more, he’d never given much thought to what these kinds of injuries would feel like before. There’d been some curiosity, somewhere around four years ago, when the news was still fresh, but it had faded just as quickly.

There were voices around him, but he couldn’t really focus on them, or what they were saying.

Not until two words were said, recognizable purely by how he’d never heard them before, how they came at the same time as a bright flash of blue light.

“Kala-Nemi. Diarahan.”

And then the pain started to fade away. Ryotaro looked up, in the direction that the voice and the light had come from, and then blinked to make sure he was seeing things correctly.

In front of him stood Ken. Ken, his thirteen-year old nephew who loved his dog and spent his evenings looking after Nanako, who he’d never quite understood, or made much effort to understand. Ken, who had seemed for all the world to be an ordinary kid with a lot of older friends that were surprisingly willing to listen to him.

Ken, who was standing there, and looking right at him, his face screwed up in a concentration that couldn’t be described.

Behind Ken, there was a large, half-transparent figure. It was a shade of orange that almost perfectly matched the mug that Ryotaro had given him, not that long ago. Something about the figure exuded power, furious lightning crashes and the full force of divine judgement and a mind more powerful than the education system could ever give him credit for.

And something else, too. A light that was gentler, and warm, that washed over Ryotaro’s body and took all of his pains with it, until the only signs of the night that he’d had would be the exhaustion that still clung to his bones, refusing to lift by even the powers on display.

Once the last of the wounds was gone, healed so well it was like he’d never been injured to begin with, Ken’s face relaxed, and the figure behind him vanished in the same light that had heralded it, shrinking and fading into the boy’s body.

All that, within the space of a moment. Ryotaro still wasn’t sure if this was real or not.

“How are you feeling?” Ken asked, as though what had just happened was something that he did every day. “I’ve never tried healing a normal person before…”

A normal person. Somehow, hearing those words made everything feel both more and less real. Less, because it confirmed that something was happening that he couldn’t explain. And more, because something about Ken asserting himself as not a normal person just… made sense, even if this was the first time he’d ever seen anything to suggest it.

“I-I’m fine, I-” Except he wasn’t fine, nothing about this was fine, Nanako was missing and his nephew had cast some kind of spell and he wasn’t injured at all despite having just been in a fairly destructive traffic accident, and there was so much he couldn’t even consider getting answers to at the moment, except for maybe one big, obvious thing. “What was that?”

It wasn’t easy to see Ken’s face in the limited light, but he didn’t seem pleased by the question. “It’s Kala-Nemi. My Persona.” And that still didn’t explain a thing, because Ryotaro had no clue what any of that was.

“What’s a Persona?”

“It’s… a kind of power. But he’s also me. My true self.” He glanced to the side. “...It made so much more sense when Kotone-san explained it…”

So Shiomi was involved in this as well, somehow. That wasn’t as surprising as it should have been, but maybe that was just the shock setting in.

“I’m just surprised you could call him here,” Amagi said, probably. Everything was still too confusing for him to focus properly. “When I reach for Amaterasu, she doesn’t…”

“...I didn’t realize I could, either. Minato-san, Akihiko-san, and Mitsuru-san can, but they had to practice a lot for it.” Sanada somehow being involved with this made even more sense than Shiomi. “...Uncle, do you think you’d be okay to come home?”

That last sentence was the one that, of the whole ordeal, made the most sense. But even then, there was something wrong with it. “Nanako-”

“I know.” Ken’s voice was quieter now, with something in his tone that Ryotaro couldn’t quite decipher, except that it was something no thirteen-year-old should have ever had to sound like. “Trust me, I know. But we can’t do anything about it right now, because doing these things on too little sleep could end with property damage, getting killed due to not paying enough attention, or someone casting Agidyne on a random person’s unattended bottle of vodka.”

“That last one sounds very specific,” Amagi remarked.

“Junpei-san has Opinions about alcohol.” And they left it at that.

Ryotaro couldn’t even begin to consider everything that was happening at the moment. “I expect a full explanation in the morning,” Was all that he could bring himself to say.

Ken bit his lip. “Honestly, I’d think less of you if you didn’t.”

* * *

  
  


Despite how he tried to keep it together, despite having numerous examples of the deleterious effects of sleep-preservation on someone’s abilities in combat, Ken still had problems getting back to sleep.

It wasn’t that he didn’t try. Just that he kept thinking about Nanako- lost in a world of fog, and he could reach her, but not yet, but hopefully not too late, either- or his uncle- either asleep in his own room or trying to be, because Diarahan could heal just about anything, and likely now brimming with questions about how Ken spent his afternoons- and Namatame-san, who he wasn’t likely to get deliveries from ever again, and that was probably a good thing. His mind was just too busy for sleep.

Turning over again, he wondered just what was going to happen the next day. They’d have to start searching the TV World, of course, no way that was going to be put off any longer than it had to be, and of course he needed to tell his uncle something about the whole thing, since while he could probably have explained away healing by eating, or accidentally brushing the edge of the television… This was something on a much, much larger scale than that.

Possibly a larger scale than anything the team in Inaba had dealt with before.

Figuring that he might as well do something while he couldn’t sleep, Ken picked the heaviest sleeper in SEES he could think of, and then sent a text.

_ Amada Ken: I need Pinaka. _

* * *

  
  


_ Arisato Minato: Why? Did something happen? _

That answer was the first thing Ken really saw the next morning, once he’d drifted into wakefulness for the final time. He wasn’t sure how much restful sleep he’d actually gotten, but it couldn’t have been worse than some of the nights he spent with SEES.

_ Amada Ken: A lot of things happened. So I need better weapons. Preferably by the end of the day. _

_ Arisato Minato: ...Would you like Tonbo-kiri as well, if we’re moving spears around? _

_ Amada Ken: Well, it can’t get you into much more trouble than just one of them… _

Satisfied with the promise of being reunited with his two favorite pointy objects, Ken flipped his phone shut and stuffed it back into his pocket. He knew he was going to have to talk to SEES about why he wanted to have his best spears with him eventually, but that could wait until he could actually talk with them about it in person.

He was already going to have to have a serious talk about those things this morning, after all. No need to put them any closer together than he actually had to.

His uncle was already downstairs, picking at cold eggplant parmigiana. Presumably that had been less effort than digging out the bread and the toaster. Ken pulled it out anyway to make some toast for himself, since he needed to eat something and diving into the snacks would probably just come back to haunt him later.

As he did that, his uncle turned to face him. “I think we both know you’ve got a bit of explaining to do.” He didn’t sound like he was mad at him, maybe, but he could have been, and Ken wasn’t sure he liked the thought of being wrong about that.

“Yeah, well… I don’t really know how to start,” He admitted. Most of the people who he had to explain things to already had Personas, or had at least seen what it looked like when a world was filled with Shadows. That Shadows existed in the first place, too, was a useful piece of background information which currently wasn’t present. “So… my friends and I all have something called a Persona. Minato-san calls in the power of the heart, but…” Well. Minato had showed himself to be completely useless when it came to matters of the heart. His thoughts didn’t count.

“Who’s…?”

“One of my senpai. He’s… an experience.” Sort of like Elizabeth. He supposed that was why they got along so well. “My senpai have all had their Personas for at least two years, but for some of them it’s a lot more. I’ve had Kala-Nemi for two years, and my friends here all started getting their powers this past year.” If he didn’t say anything about a time before two years ago, maybe his uncle would never think to ask about it. “And… our powers tend to be different from each other, but there’s some things that all of us can do, like- like using TVs to go to another world.” And maybe that was a bit outlandish, but the Dark Hour had been the last convenient go-to for these things, and it had been gone for almost two years, now.

“TVs?” And there was the skepticism, right on time. The mention of powers would probably have taken that spot, if it hadn’t been for the night before.

Ken could still feel Kala-Nemi’s power, could call upon it if he needed to. He didn’t think it’d be easy in any way, but… he knew how to access it, in an emergency.

Hopefully, no emergencies like that one ever came up again.

“It’s like this.” He walked over to the television and placed a finger against the screen, holding it there as the ripples spread out. “There’s a world inside that’s… full of fog, and… that’s where Namatame-san and Nanako are right now. Somewhere in there. We don’t know where for sure yet, but… Rise-san should be able to find them. I’ll ask her about it after breakfast.” Because food was important. Because there was no reason to go into the TV without enough energy to actually make it through, because he wasn’t even sure if the others were awake yet.

Despite how much he kept telling himself this, it still felt like he should have been doing something more.

“These… powers of yours… How did you get them?” And that was another question that, in hindsight, he really should have expected.

“It can… be different, between people,” He said, because there really was no good way to explain it. “But I just… woke up one day, and I had a Persona.” Being able to call him out had always been the difficult part. But he didn’t have to worry about that as much anymore.

It had just been replaced with a lot of new worries, instead. “I was lucky. People have died trying to get a Persona.” Or not even trying, but by doing things that, if they’d lived, could have given them one. Or by other people trying to make them have a Persona.

Thinking about it, Ken supposed it was a good thing that the TV World had been a more recent discovery.

“They did… and you just have this power.” It was almost a relief to hear the skepticism make a return. “And you were eleven when it happened?”

Well. That had been when the first summoning happened, anyway. Ken didn’t think he even had an exact timeline for how his powers had developed, except for that first summoning, the conversation that had eventually created Kala-Nemi, and now the previous night.

He nodded. “The others were… pretty surprised, when they met me.” For the most part. But that required going into things that his uncle definitely couldn’t know about. “But they still taught me everything they could. It’s- a good group of Persona Users is like a family.” A functional one, not the absolute mess masquerading as one that was this household.

But Ken didn’t think he needed to say that part out loud. Just from the circumstances that led to this conversation happening, he figured that was already implied.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Yukiko can walk into Daidara's and buy the best fan that doesn't require fighting the Reaper months ahead of schedule, Ken can send away for his best spears.
> 
> If it seems like Ken's not explaining things very well, that's because he's both not particularly invested in explaining things more than he absolutely has to. And his idea of how much he has to explain may be lower than what most people would think of.
> 
> Among other things, he should probably think to explain the arrival of a pair of spears.


	112. In Which Weapons Are Delivered

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Additional information has not made the Dojima household dynamics any more stable.
> 
> Some spears are delivered.

As soon as Ken had finished eating his toast, which he’d done as quickly as possible, he was on his phone. “What are you doing?” Ryotaro asked. He wasn’t sure if he was more curious or concerned at the moment.

“Making plans to get Nanako back.” He didn’t look away from his phone screen even once. “There’s a lot we have to do to get ready, but if everything goes to plan, we should be able to get moving after school tomorrow at the latest.” That was still a very long time from now.

“That long?”

“First, we need to know where they are. Rise-san can handle that part, but she might need more information about Namatame-san in order to find him. We also need food and stuff, since even if we have a location, we could be looking for a long time. One of my senpai is going to come by later today with something that could help us a lot. And tomorrow’s a school day. At least we don’t have to wait around for the moon to be the right phase...” Why would that be a concern?

“The moon?”

“...Don’t worry about it. That stopped being a problem long before I moved here.” As if that made it any better. As if Ryotaro wanted to think about an eleven-year-old child doing things that required healing powers on the level of the previous night’s display. Even if the kid hadn’t been related to him, he still wouldn’t have liked the thought of it.

And yet, now, there was a thirteen-year-old sitting at the table, talking about plans that, if he wasn’t mistaken, involved using those kinds of powers.

“Is what you’re planning dangerous?” He found himself asking, despite being sure that he already knew the answer.

“...Not as much for me as it is for some people.” This was absolutely not reassuring. “If someone without a Persona ends up in the other world… Then everything they’re unsure about will come to life. And they’ll meet their Shadow. Shadows are… Most of them don’t like humans. And without a Persona, it’s almost impossible to fight back against them.”

Ryotaro didn’t fully understand what his nephew was trying to tell him. “So… Nanako’s dealing with that? Right now?”

“She might be. But it’s not like fifth grade. Teddie says that the Shadows don’t notice normal people in their world while it’s foggy, and the fog there only lifts when it’s foggy here. So- so we’ve got time.” He didn’t sound entirely sure of it.

“...How do you even know about these things?” Ken winced.

“Well… Bad luck, people with Navigation powers, and the remnants of old mad science?” And still, none of this was reassuring in the slightest. “We… sort of just figured stuff out as we went…” And, apparently, he’d been going along and doing this under Ryotaro’s nose for the longest time. And yet, somehow, it didn’t even surprise him.

“You don’t know what you’re doing.” And yet, he was one of the only ones who could do anything. Ryotaro wasn’t going to even pretend that Ken would be open to bringing him into that other world with him.

“I know enough.” Having placed his dish in the sink, Ken proceeded to turn to the dog. “Time to go, Koromaru.” He then took something from the countertop.

“...Why are you taking a knife?”

“So Koromaru has something to fight with.” As though it could be that simple.

“It’s that dangerous?”

When Ken met his gaze this time, there was a clear storm raging behind his eyes. Or maybe the crashing lightning had always been there, and he just hadn’t been looking for it. “You can’t stop us.”

Of course not. Not as long as there were televisions around, not as long as he had so little time.

But Ryotaro still felt that, as the boy and his dog walked through the door, the final remaining shards of his family had now crumbled to pieces.

* * *

  
  


They needed information. Of course they needed information. Apparently, months of living in the same house as Nanako just wasn’t enough to make up for the massive gap of information regarding Namatame.

Ken didn’t know why he was surprised. It was as if the Shadows prided themselves on making life inconvenient for him, particularly at the expense of others.

“We’ll all split up and ask around town,” Rise decided. As she was the one scanning, it made sense for her to be the one to decide this. “And we can meet back here later today to share what we’ve learned. Hopefully, it’s not just endless repetitions of the same affair…”

“I’ll have to go to the train station to pick something up later,” Ken stated. “I don’t know if anyone around there will know anything, though…”

Chie glanced at him. “The train station? What would you need from there?”

“...Well, one of my senpai is supposed to be delivering something. Even if it wasn’t an emergency, it isn’t really the kind of thing that can be sent by mail.” And he needed the best spears possible as soon as possible.

Yukiko paused. “...Would they be arrested if they were seen with it?”

“...Probably.” It would, at the very least, attract a large number of questions. “So it’ll probably be someone who can make others not pay attention to it.” One of the trifecta, most likely. Charm spells might not have been the most useful thing against Shadows, but when it came to other humans, there was no better way to forcibly redirect attention.

Fear would probably work, as well, but Ken didn’t think he knew anyone who liked inflicting that. They’d all lived in fear for so long that they couldn’t bring themselves to force anyone else to go through the same thing.

“I’ll ask people things for you, Kenny!” Teddie volunteered. “I’ll ask everyone!”

He didn’t doubt it. Sure, he’d probably end up making a scene, but better it happened out in the town than for someone else to notice them in Junes and follow them through the television.

“That… thanks, Teddie.” At the very least, if everyone was wondering about the weird kid from the textiles shop, they weren’t wondering about the spears. So there was that.

Besides, he’d done really well the last time they needed information. So there wasn’t that much reason not to trust that he’d find out whatever he needed.

But it just felt too much like he was doing nothing.

* * *

  
  


Considering that getting to Inaba from Iwatodai took two hours at minimum, Ken was sort of surprised to see anyone arriving before lunchtime.

“I… didn’t expect you to come here, Mitsuru-san.” She was always busy, these days, between the Shadow Operatives, the Kirijo Group, and her own insistence on continuing her education. “I thought it’d be Kotone-san or Minato-san.”

“If either of them came here, they wouldn’t get back to Iwatodai for at least a week.” He couldn’t even say that she was wrong. Especially when things were picking up like this. “Though, I… have to wonder why you’re suddenly asking for these.”

“Nanako’s in the TV.” Immediately, he could feel the air temperature dropping. “And- and the person who took her is there with her, too.” He still hadn’t given much thought to what would happen after they all caught up to them, but he’d always considered that a problem for Future Ken to worry about. “I want to be as prepared for this as possible.”

Mitsuru handed him the spears. They weren’t quite as heavy as he remembered, but that might just have been how long it was since he’d last used them. “...Would you like any assistance?”

In all honesty? That would have been nice. Several members of SEES, he could picture working with his current group pretty well. He even had an idea of exactly how they’d do it.

But his friends all had lives, and responsibilities, and he just couldn’t ask them to drop everything to come out to Inaba for him. Even though he knew that all of them would, if he so much as suggested it. “...That won’t be necessary. I’m sure we can handle it. But… you could stay for lunch, if you want?” She’d already come all the way out here, he could not make her schedule any worse. “We’re all going to meet up to put together what we know, so you’ll get to meet everyone.”

He wasn’t sure if the reason she agreed was because she really wanted to, or because she was worried about him.

* * *

  
  


Mitsuru was not a subtle person.

Ken had known this for about as long as he had known her, her lack of subtlety being more glaring than even her lack of communication skills. Sometimes, one of them could make up for the other, but this was probably not one of those times.

Rise had a notebook out, and was writing down everything that anyone had to tell her about Namatame, while very obviously trying to ignore Mitsuru’s curious examination of what the food court had on offer. “I think we’ll be able to get started with this. How are we doing with snacks and stuff?”

“I’ve got it,” Ren stated, holding up a bag. “Sorry, Satonaka-san, but they didn’t have the gum you wanted.”

“Y-yeah, they… hardly ever do…” Chie’s disappointment was almost tangible. “I guess it’ll be fine… you have other stuff, right?”

Sensing the question Mitsuru was bound to have, Ken sighed, “It’s her first mission. She only got her Persona a bit over a month ago.” And he was glad that nothing serious had come up since then, because it meant they could all have a break of some kind.

“...Are you sure you should be bringing her along, in that case?”

“She’d follow us either way,” Yukiko pointed out. “At least this way, we can keep an eye on her.”

“Hey, what’s that supposed to mean!?”

“You thought the best way to make me tell you about things was to get yourself thrown into the television.” Ken had to admit, she had a very good point. “...Say, Ken-kun, how did you explain things to your uncle?”

He winced. “I… said that I had powers, and that I’d had Kala-Nemi for two years. And that I’d save Nanako, and that he couldn’t stop me.” He didn’t think there was anything else important.

“...Ya know, that’s more than I thought you’d ever tell him,” Kanji remarked.

“I couldn’t say nothing, I’d already cast Diarahan on him. ...Oh, Mitsuru-san. I don’t need an Evoker for things anymore!” There. A change of subject, sort of. “I’d offer to show you, but…” They were sort of in public. Just because hardly anything noticed them doing weird things didn’t mean they had to tempt fate more than they already had.

Mitsuru’s eyes narrowed. Ken remembered that, while she wasn’t very powerful of one, she was still a Navigator, and that implied a certain level of observation. “...Are you sure you don’t want my assistance?”

She could probably tell if he lied to her. And if he was being completely honest with himself, he would have felt a lot better about their chances if they had Artemisia backing them up, even if that’d leave their team with three ice users and still nobody who was dedicated to Garu or Frei.

But he still didn’t want to burden her. She was busy enough already. “...I’m sure it’ll be fine.”

Given how she didn’t follow them through the television, he could only hope that she believed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mitsuru is... not exactly the last person Ken wanted to come to Inaba at the moment, but she definitely wasn't who he was hoping for.
> 
> It should be pointed out, at this point, that explanations are really not Ken's strong suit.


	113. In Which An Ascension Begins

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nanako and Namatame's location has been found, meaning that it's time to get moving.
> 
> Lots of people have a lot to think about.

There were many people that Ryotaro expected never to meet in his life. People who were famous, or who lived far away, or who just had no reason to want to visit a sleepy little country town.

Kirijo Mitsuru, as far as he’d known for a long time, checked all three of those boxes. There had been rumors about her making an appearance in Inaba, back in the stream, but as far as he’d been able to tell, they were nothing but rumors.

After all, what reason would one of the richest women in the country have, to come to a place like this?

“You’re Amada’s uncle, aren’t you?” And then he had a reason, sort of, even if all the pieces of the puzzle refused to really fit together. “He’s… not said much about you.”

In all likelihood, that was because he didn’t have a lot positive to say. Ryotaro was fully willing to admit that, as far as parenting went, he could have done better.

He could have been there more often. He could have made more of an effort to connect. He could have looked harder at the people in front of him, noticed more so that he wasn't blindsided when magic entered the equation.

Or. That he’d notice it wasn’t entering at all, but had been there from the very beginning, in the storms hiding behind Ken’s eyes, and how a room would grow brighter just because he stepped into it. Subtle or not, now that he’d seen it, it felt like the sort of thing he should have noticed sooner. “He didn’t say much about you, either.”

“I’m not surprised. The conditions that led to our group forming… Most of it is best kept secret. And Amada has more reasons not to speak of it than most.”

How much of those reasons had to do with him, and the relationship that they didn’t have? “I wouldn’t have thought a kid like him would have a lot of secrets.” He’d never been the most open of people, but he’d never seemed afraid to speak his thoughts, either. Not that Ryotaro needed many reminders about his not being cut out for the whole parenting thing.

“No one ever does. That’s actually the case for almost all of us… Sadly, Arisato still hasn’t learned the meaning of subtlety,” Said the woman who probably stood out the most in the whole town. Ryotaro thought that the name ‘Arisato’ sounded sort of familiar, but he just couldn’t place it. “...How much has he told you, about what we do?”

If he thought back, and pulled everything he knew together? “...Not much,” He admitted. “Just that you have powers, and they’re called Personas, and also something about a TV?” It still didn’t make any sense to him, though the fact that the television screen rippled when Ken touched it was a very compelling piece of evidence.

Kirijo gave a heavy sigh. “...That’s about what I expected.”

* * *

  
  


This new section of the TV World was beautiful. It was bright, but it was also surreal, and empty, and sad. Kala-Nemi glowed softly, pulsing those words through Ken’s head as he looked around at this place which had, at least partially, been created by Nanako.

“Nana-chan’s in here?” Teddie ventured forward, the squeaking of his footsteps sounding incredibly out of place. “It’s… a really sad place, isn’t it? Most of the places we go to are angry, not...”

Ken supposed that, if anyone was qualified to make judgements on that kind of thing, it was the resident Shadow. “Well… Nanako doesn’t really have a lot to be mad about.” Or, she did, but apparently, it seemed to her like being sad was the better reaction.

It sort of made Ken wonder what it would have looked like if their positions were reversed.

Not anything good. He was sure of that much, at least.

Not that he could say things had turned out all that well as they were.

“She doesn’t seem the type to get mad about things,” Ren agreed. “Not- not as a big thing, anyway. Not big enough to make…” He gestured at the thing in front of them, a place that could have been a paradise if not for how obviously wrong it was.

“It’s… not just her, though, is it?” Yukiko asked. “The person who took her…”

“He’s in there, as well,” Rise confirmed. “I don’t know how much he had to do with making this place, but he’s definitely here.”

“...Should he have been part of making this place?” Ren blinked. “If he pushed her in… he’s a Persona User, right?”

“Not necessarily.” Ken was still pretty sure it was more likely than not, but it was important that they have all of the information they needed. “Back when the Dark Hour was a thing, plenty of people who weren’t Persona Users could experience it… I mean, all the ones I knew about died, but…” Maybe he shouldn't have mentioned that part. “It wasn’t necessarily being part of the Dark Hour that caused it.” He wasn’t sure that was helping his case at all.

Teddie opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but Naoto and Chie both shot him a look, and he closed it without saying anything.

“Even if he somehow doesn’t have a Persona, we should probably act as if he has one,” Yukiko remarked. “At least until we get to them. We can… consider what to do, then.”

By which she probably meant coming up with any sort of plan whatsoever. They’d all been worried enough that the concept of planning ahead had sort of fallen to the wayside at the moment. Sort of like, from what he’d been told, half of the full moons. Not that planning was always useful when it came to Shadows.

“I know what we’re gonna do,” Chie declared, taking a step forward. “We’re gonna go in. We’re gonna crush that guy. And then we’ll take Nanako-chan home in time for dinner.”

That was a nice thought. But Ken knew that it wouldn’t be as simple as she made it out to be. If only due to the very long list of explanations he expected that he’d have to provide, or else make things with his uncle even worse than they were already.

And yet, despite the complications it had caused, he found that he still didn’t regret healing him.

* * *

  
  


“He really wouldn’t have told me anything, would he? If I hadn’t been hurt.” He didn’t need to be told the answer. The fact that Ken had lived in his house for more than half a year without saying anything about his powers was proof enough.

“Our club supervisor, back when we still had one of those, did a lot to espouse the value of secrecy. And Amada never liked talking about his experiences to begin with.” Kirijo seemed deeply uncomfortable, at this point. “Particularly to people he wasn't sure would believe him.”

And Ryotaro knew that, without his firsthand experience, he would never have believed a thing about worlds inside of TVs and healing magic and figures that children could call up from within themselves. He would have thought of it as a joke, or a game, or maybe a fantastical story that simply had yet to be put to writing.

He would never, not in a thousand years, have thought of this as real.

Honestly, he still wasn’t sure that he wasn’t just dreaming this.

“...I figured that.” For a moment, he thought back to the start of the summer, far enough that the kid’s friends hadn’t even shown up yet, to a party that had apparently been thrown just because they could, and how it had all ended earlier than it was meant to.

Because the subject of Ken’s mother, of Ryotaro’s sister, had been brought up, as well as the events surrounding her death. Events that Ryotaro had never been able to get that much information on, except for the most important parts- that it had happened, and that her kid was distraught, enough so to make up stories of dangerous monsters.

Once that part was brought up, all that happened was that it upset the kid. Because whatever he thought he’d seen that night, apparently he still believed it.

...He pushed those thoughts out of his mind for now. “How dangerous is it? What they’re doing.” Even ignoring the reason for their trip today, he just couldn’t find it in himself to say that it was completely safe. Not only could he not convince himself of it, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to even lie about it to others.

“...Dangerous enough that, if it were anyone other than Amada, I wouldn’t have listened when he told me to stand by.” And then she left, as quickly as she arrived.

This wasn’t reassuring in the slightest. It might not have been meant to be. And he still hadn’t really learned anything, about this world that apparently existed, but was just out of his reach.

At this point, all he could do was wait and hope that the kids all got back safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If anything, joining the team late has just increased Chie's bravado. This might not be the best sign.


	114. In Which Ken Takes A Walk Down Memory Lane

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The problem with having a loved one imprisoned in the TV World is having to hear everything that's on their mind.
> 
> Ken is learning this. He's not having a very good time right now.

If Ken had felt a bit strange hearing Chie and Yukiko’s voices, back in the dojo, that had nothing on what he felt now that he was climbing this new place.

Hearing the voices of his friends had been surreal. Among other things, while Yukiko’s voice had surrounded them, Yukiko was right there. But all the same, hearing the voices of high school students in the context of a place filled with Shadows was… not right, but familiar all the same.

Hearing his family… Well, it still didn’t feel wholly unfamiliar, for some reason, but it was more clearly wrong.

If only because he’d never had to worry about hearing his own voice before. Or those of the people he cared about most.

 **_“...If Dad was here, we could have had our picnic.”_ ** Hearing those words brought Ken back months, to a point where the only person the team had rescued so far had been Yukiko. Back when he almost couldn’t believe that there were Shadows in Inaba.

 **_“Oh? You were going to have a picnic?”_ ** Hearing Shinjiro’s voice in the context of a place filled with Shadows shouldn’t have been that much of a surprise. After all, that was sort of how they’d first met.

But Shinjiro hadn’t summoned his Persona in years, and had never ventured further into the TV World than the entrance. So really, his voice didn’t belong there any more than Nanako’s did.

 **_“I dunno where we were gonna get the food from. But… he was going to play with us. It wouldn’t just be me, and Ken, and Koro-chan.”_ ** Something about that sentence didn’t seem quite right, but maybe he was just imagining things. After all, it had happened months ago.

**_“You play with her? ...Should have figured. You already copy Shinji a lot, why wouldn’t you also be a good big brother?”_ **

**_“Big… Brother?”_ ** Something about hearing those words made Ken’s chest tighten, even as the voices themselves faded out once again.

“...Is that why she calls you Big Bro?” Rise asked.

He nodded. “Akihiko-san gave her the idea. It’s- I’m not sure how much I really did, to deserve it.”

“You’re here right now, aren’t you?” Ren pointed out. “I… I think that has to count for something.”

Was it really enough? Just to be there? Even if he didn’t tell her about the truth behind his powers, or left her alone in the afternoons to attack Shadows with a pointy stick?

Even if he hadn’t let himself really admit how much he cared about these people?

...He was thinking too much into it. If there was anything he needed to say to Nanako, he could tell her about it once she was home safely. Because as long as they could get her safely out of this world, then everything would be just fine. It had to be.

Somehow, even the end of the world had been less stressful than this.

* * *

  
  


If Ken had been uncomfortable with hearing Nanako’s voice, hearing his own was somehow even worse. **_“...Is there anything else?”_ **

**_“...What happens to people, when they die?”_ ** He remembered this, too, a question that had come up on the heels of another, equally heavy question, and one that would eventually be followed up by even more. Because, apparently, neither of them were allowed a peaceful childhood.

**_“That… really isn’t something that… comes up a lot… I mean, there’s a lot of different ideas about that, and there’s… not really any ways to see who’s right. It… I guess it’s meant to be a mystery.”_ **

**_“I guess so. ...Oh, hi, Koro-chan!”_ ** And that was where it cut off.

“Wondering about stuff like that, huh?” Kanji stared up at the ceiling. “When’d this happen?”

“It was… before this summer. Or… really early summer. Somewhere around then.” He wished he could remember the dates more properly, but the world had always seemed to slip by just a bit too fast for that, only coming to a stop on a scattering of very important days.

His birthday, of course. The first few days in a new school year. A holiday, every now and again. And, for obvious reasons, the fourth of October.

“Kinda strange, isn’t it? Doesn’t seem like the sort of thing a kid should be thinking about.”

Ken wasn’t sure he was able to comment on that. He’d had anything but a normal childhood. “I don’t really know what brought it up. It just… happened, one day.” Maybe it was because of the multiple deaths in their family within just a few years. Maybe something at school had brought it up. Maybe she’d just gotten interested because of all the talk around town about murder.

He supposed he wouldn’t know unless he asked. And that would require Nanako being around to ask, even if she did somehow remember.

“She just… asked? Just like that?”

“No, she… First, she asked why people die in the first place.”

“Did that… worry you, at all?” Naoto asked.

“...I wasn’t that much older than her when I started asking that.” And nobody responded to that one. Maybe they just couldn’t think of what to say.

That had to be it. After all, he couldn’t really think of any other way for them to respond.

* * *

  
  


The next time Ken heard voices, he was almost prepared for what they had to say.

Almost. He could never be fully prepared for the things he heard swirling through these mists. But somehow, he’d stepped off of the stairs knowing exactly what was going to come next.

 **_“They never really had the chance to spend time together, I guess, and by the time they did, they didn’t really have that much in common… or something. It’s complicated.”_ ** It was his own voice again.

“Who were you talking about?” Ren asked. It was becoming a common question, now that they realized he was actually willing to answer it.

“...Minato-san and Kotone-san.” After all, what other conversation could it have been?

**_“...All right. I… don’t really understand, though.”_ **

**_“...I guess it did get a bit long. Your real family is who you want it to be. That’s all there is to it. But some people think it has to be a lot more complicated than that. Does that make sense to you?”_ ** The words, again, sounded somewhat distorted from what they had been, though Ken just couldn’t put his finger on it. Not really.

**_“A bit… That means Dad’s my real dad… and you’re my real big brother! I’m… part of your family, too, right, Big Bro?”_ **

**_"Of course you are."_ **

**_“And Dad?”_ **

**_“...Sorry.”_ ** He knew he hadn’t said that. But that was his voice, all the same.

He would have said it, if he’d thought to. But he hadn’t.

 **_“It’s… it’s okay if he’s not quite real to you. Sometimes, I dunno if we’re real to him, either.”_ ** Hearing those words felt even worse the second time.

“We are,” He found himself replying out loud, despite knowing that his words would never reach her. “He… I’m pretty sure he really is trying, he’s just really, really bad at it.”

His words echoed around the hallway, before fading into nothing.

* * *

  
  


The World Balance had not been any more fun for Ken to fight than it was the first time, but nobody wanted to turn back now, so they kept moving on.

So they kept going, and they fought, and they climbed. And then, on the eighth floor, the voices came back once again, but this time it was different.

**_“Big Bro? Why does Shinjiro-san keep looking at you like that?”_ **

This time, while the words themselves were strangely familiar, he couldn’t recall such a conversation having ever taken place.

 **_“It’s… because the two of us didn’t always get along as well as we do now.”_ ** Well. That was an understatement if he’d ever heard one.

**_“Really? Why not?”_ **

**_“It’s… I didn’t like him, back when we first met. He made a really bad first impression, and… it took me a while to really get past that, no matter how many chances I had to see how nice he actually was.”_ **

**_“But you did, right? You’re friends now.”_ **

**_“We are, but… even when we come from, he still has bad days sometimes. The one here… I don’t think he ever lets himself have good ones.”_ ** And now the conversation was taking a turn for the bizarre, but Ken couldn’t really bring himself to question it, because it still made an odd kind of sense that he couldn’t quite parse.

When he tried to, all that it did was bring tears to his eyes that he didn’t understand.

**_“Oh… So, what made you be friends?”_ **

**_“He saved my life.”_ ** Okay, this conversation couldn’t actually have happened, because that was far too honest for him. And yet… **_“And… I realized he was a lot better than I’d made him out to be.”_ **

**_“Do you think… Dad might be better than you think he is, too?”_ ** The tears were coming more quickly, now, and somehow, despite the many reasons this conversation had to be impossible… Ken knew exactly what came next.

**_“I hope so. I really do.”_ **

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I spent a lot of time going over old chapters to get the right wording for this one. Any deviations from the original conversations were entirely intentional.
> 
> Deviations in the last one might not be, but that's because I haven't written out that part yet.
> 
> Sorry, World Balance, but you are much less important to this story than one of the few times that PQ1 ever ends up being relevant to the rest of the series.


End file.
